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It’s predictable as night following day. Whenever a conservative criticizes Donald Trump — or even attacks the GOP for enabling his rise — some on the left will respond, “Well, if you really opposed him, you’d oppose his agenda.” Just ask Republican senator Jeff Flake.In promoting his new book, Conscience of a Conservative, Flake yesterday published an excerpt from it in Politico. It’s a worthwhile read. He attacks the Republican party for entering into a “Faustian bargain,” going along with the “very bumpy ride” of a Trump administration to “achieve some long-held policy goals,” and argues that policy victories won at the expense of principles and “institutions conducive to freedom” will ultimately prove to be “Pyrrhic.” His meaning is clear: Pursue conservative goals, but do so while respecting democratic values, maintaining public integrity, and preserving constitutional structures.The response was swift, and made clear that a number of folks on the left aren’t content for conservatives to merely oppose Trump. For Flake to be truly credible, his critics seemed to assert, he would have to . . . cease being a conservative . . .. . . [C]onservatives should do their best to advance conservative goals while at the same time loudly and unequivocally condemning this administration’s absurd excesses. No one should be more angry at Trump’s tweets than conservatives. No one should be more concerned about Trump’s conduct toward Russia than conservatives. And, yes, no one should be more alarmed by White House chaos than conservatives. In reality, until the next round of voting, only conservatives have the true power to keep Trump in check . . .. . . [The] fight is right now raging within the GOP and the conservative movement more broadly. On one side are those like Ben Sasse and many of my National Review colleagues — men and women with unquestioned commitment to conservative principles who don’t believe you should sacrifice virtue, honesty, or integrity to raise or lower tax rates or excuse conduct on your own side that you’d condemn in your opponents. On the other side are the unabashed Trump apologists like Sean Hannity and his allies on talk radio and online — people who hunt “deep state” bogeymen and find no Tweet too silly/shocking/offensive/inflammatory to excuse. They bathe in “liberal tears” and gleefully “fight fire with fire" . . .. . . Conservatism’s foreseeable future will be defined by a choice: Pursue conservative ends through virtuous, constitutional means or succumb to Trump apologism. Some on the left will scorn conservatives regardless of which option they pick. After all, to many liberals, conservatism is the original sin, and nothing else really matters. Some on the angry populist right will scorn those conservatives who choose to maintain their integrity as “weak” or naïve. After all, to the angry populist Right, winning is everything, and nothing else matters.But conservatives should ignore the radical Left and the angry populist Right. When it comes to values and vision, our mandate is clear: We must always choose both.
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Topic: Don’t Let the Left Define Conservative Opposition to Trump (Read 300 times)
