http://heatst.com/politics/nevertrump-win-lose-indiana-conservatives-get-some-balls/Conservatives Should Get Some Balls—Win or Lose Indiana. Semper #NeverTrumpBy Rick Wilson | 4:38 pm, May 2, 2016
If you’re a frequent Trumpbart reader or Hannity viewer, it seems all that remains for Trump to seize the Republican nomination is that he don a crown of laurel and a purple and gold toga before driving his chariot over the Cuyahoga River. Hell, why even bother with the convention or the general election? Doesn’t the glory of the God Emperor Trump demand we simply install him in the White House without further objection?
In their quest to impose Trump as the GOP nominee—and make no mistake, Trump fans, the media you loathe with such vigor is laughing its collective ass off at how easily they’ve sold you this poison-pill candidate—the Never Trump movement is still an inconvenient truth, the skunk at the classy Trump garden party. And by “classy” I mean “hopelessly vulgar,” but you knew that.
Last week, the desire of the nation’s political media class to end this race reached a fever pitch, first with chest-beating that Trump’s wins in the liberal Northeast ended the race, then with breathless stories that we’d see a more substantive, more cogent and more Presidential Donald Trump. The Donald’s triumphalism and swagger, combined with this relentless push by the press to declare Never Trump at an end moved in to overdrive, regardless of the facts, grasping for any narrative hook, no matter how dissonant or phony.
When John Boehner attacked Senator Ted Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh” he was— mirabile dictu!—transformed from an avatar of the moribund and corrupt Establishment so despised by the Trump fan base into their hero. Reporters lost their collective minds over an out-of-context quote from Marco Rubio that seemed to praise Trump and though it was almost immediately debunked, the meta-narrative of crumbling opposition to Trump was served. Rubio’s profound reservations and sharp critique of Trump’s behavior and persona are still front-and-center, but you wouldn’t know that if you only paid attention to the herd media.
The coverage of the still-small, but admittedly growing number of Vichy Republicans in Washington, D.C., have also given the media another weapon to attack Never Trump, but is anyone surprised elected officials and DC lobbyists are displaying the worst kind of shabby and transactional politics, motivated by momentary fear or a misplaced the sense that Trump can be made malleable? While today they’re portrayed as jumping on board the Trump Train, in the general election they’ll be branded as “Trump Republicans,” and to use a phrase popular with The Donald, believe me, that won’t be a compliment.
Like Veruca Salt, the media wants what they want, and they want it now. That’s why they’re spinning Indiana as the end of the line for the Cruz campaign. While both Cruz and Never Trump need to step up their game in Indiana, for all his alpha-dog posturing Trump keeps losing on the ground to Ted Cruz’s delegate operations, and despite their squawking and complaints, the rules on the convention still have the immutable 1,237 blocking the way for a Trump coronation if he falls even one vote short. It’s the killer app that buys the conservative movement and the GOP a last shot at Trump inside the Republican nomination process. The results of a contested convention will be like treating gangrene; we may lose a limb, but we’ll save the GOP from certain political death (that’s something even Jon Snow couldn’t recover from).
For elected leaders, their political survival is on the line. For conservatives, their movement is on the line. For right-leaning media, their credibility is at stake. In the constellation of compelling reasons to resist Trump, principle matters, but as candidates see Trump’s terrible general election prospects and his hideous approval ratings, their instincts for self-preservation should kick in.
Particularly after the Clinton machine starts its multi-gazillion dollar ad blitz against Trump and the media suddenly—suddenly! —starts to play a different game with him, standing against his repellent positions and cancerous candidacy is probably the only way to avoid having the electoral hopes of hundreds of down-ballot Republican candidates consumed in the dumpster fire of his campaign. It’s inconvenient for Trump fans, but not every candidate lives in a deep-red, economically illiterate, violently anti-immigrant, pro-war crime enclave.
You’ll see Republicans in swing states doing the simple math; just adding a cohort of white nationalists and amping up the rhetoric with the anti-immigrant faction doesn’t offset losing the support of millions of women, Hispanics, educated professionals and sane people. Republicans candidates either understand now, or will soon that Clinton’s ads won’t just attack Trump; the phrase “Donald Trump Republican” will be a pejorative in a thousand TV spots.
In hopes of preempting the inevitable linkage of GOP candidates to Trump’s nasty, poisonous personal brand, you should expect to hear a construct something like, “I understand the anger Donald Trump is tapping into, but I reject his approach…” from many candidates this Fall. Being Never Trump is the cheapest political insurance out there.
For limited-government conservatives, drawing the stark, clear contrast between the juche of the Trump cult and the principles of limited-government conservatism is a civics lesson that’s been missing. His very loose grasp of the law, the Constitution, and the powers of the executive and limits on state power are a recapitulation of the same contest of man and mob versus law and principle that is as old as human governance.
National security conservatives need to keep treating Trump’s Blonde Putin, dumbest-guy-in-the room opera-buffa nationalist act with the ridicule it deserves, lest he come to define American foreign policy in the minds of millions of Americans, and billions overseas.
Grassroots Republican activists (the overwhelming majority of whom are decidedly Never Trump) should push hard to separate his toxic brand from their party at the state and local level, confident in the certain knowledge that this man is an existential danger to the Republic, and is spectacularly unqualified in temperament, judgment and knowledge to serve as a local dogcatcher, much less as President. They should keep fighting Trump’s hostile takeover of the GOP, not because it’s easy or because it’s fun or because Ted Cruz is some perfect Republican dream-date candidate, but despite it.
And although it should be abundantly apparent to all, we need to make clear that resisting Trump isn’t because we love Hillary Clinton, precisely because we know the damage she’ll do. When the frontrunner of the GOP is worse than Her Majesty…it’s time for Never Trump.
Bandwagon effects are real. Resisting the media’s overwhelming desire to choose him as the GOP’s standard-bearer by systematically choking out any candidate or message opposing him just makes it seem harder than it is. The whole appeal of the Trump cult is it requires nothing from this fans but an utter suspension of disbelief, blind idol worship and boundless anger. Fighting that cult and its leader is what principle demands, even in an election season where principle is in short supply.
