Let's say you're reading an article about a man who raised a pit bull for the purpose of entering it in dogfights. He teaches it to be mean, to attack mercilessly. He makes it strong, feeds it red meat. And then one day this pit bull mauls him. Would you have any sympathy for that man?
This is not a charitable way of looking at the conservative #NeverTrump movement, but it's what I keep returning to when I think about why it's been so unsuccessful. It's a movement led by conservative opinion leaders, media personalities, and Republican consultants -- the people who really run the GOP, or at least did before Donald Trump came along. The base they've stoked has turned on them, and they're upset. But they'd be a lot more sympathetic if they'd cop to the fact that they are largely responsible for his rise.
Whether you're right or left, there are endless reasons to oppose Trump. Remember that he is, among many other things, a vaccine truther. So you'd think that conservatives would have better luck standing up to him. Movement conservatism is a pretty coherent governing philosophy, and it's easy to see where he's deviated from the scriptures handed down by the likes of Burke, Friedman, Hayek and Buckley. The problem is no one, or rather very few people outside Washington's many right-wing think tanks, seem to be getting all that exercised about his heresies.
Shouldn't this produce a little soul searching on the right? You'd hope so, but we've seen very little of it. They've lost control of a party they've dominated for decades, but #NeverTrump, broadly speaking, doesn't seem all that curious as to why. The conclusions, they suspect, would be uncomfortable, so better to focus on devising new ways to hit Trump.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-nevertrump-failed/
