This is a perilous time for Trump. His candidates lost key midterm races, and many key conservative voices are signaling that Trump’s time at the head of the Republican Party may be coming to an end. While this may yet come to pass, there are plenty of folks who have a lot to lose if the party jettisons Trump into oblivion.
None more so than “Never Trump” Conservatives who have established a cottage industry in penning countless articles railing against Donald’s growing power and appearing on MSNBC and other liberal networks to compare Trump to any number of authoritarian and white supremacist figures on a near nightly basis. When these former Republicans began their crusade to oppose every action Trump took, I will admit to a certain admiration of their principles. Donald Trump is a powerful figure who commands a dedicated and devoted legion of supporters across this nation. The media makes millions by boosting his inane sound bites, and he is adept at using that media to grow his own anti establishment brand. Opposing him in the early stages of his rise, especially after he was the nominee in 2016 did take courage, it must be acknowledged.
But the Never Trump proponents quickly overplayed their hand. As Trump’s presidency unfolded, groups like The Lincoln Project were there every step of the way, assuring us that we were slipping further and further into a literal Nazi dictatorship. For all of the hyperbole, Trump was certainly deserving of condemnation, never more so than after the events of January 6th. His actions were worthy of impeachment and his demeanor and temperament were unfit for the high and noble office he held. His baseless allegations of fraud damaged what little credibility he held with independent voters and average Americans, and he paid the highest electoral price for his hubris, eventually losing to Joe Biden.
But after America repudiated Trump in 2020, the question became: what would happen to outlets like The Lincoln Project and their members now that their icon of sin failed to reclaim the White House? Would they now work to reform the GOP and help them move away from the scourge of Trumpism? Would they return to their conservative roots and lead a resurgence of the party they once belonged to?
Not surprisingly, after four years of hearing Tom Nichols and Rick Wilson call Conservative voters racists and bigots, Republican supporters had little desire to take their advice. And so the Never Trump founders had to find a way to remain relevant; they chose to embark on a crusade to ensure that they always had an enemy to rail against.
It was then that the Never Trump movement pivoted from one that was designed to oust Trump from power, but one calling for the explicit nationwide political centralization of power in the hands of Democrats. They demanded the GOP be burned to the ground as punishment for nominating Donald Trump, and would accept nothing less. And if any Conservative voters refused to hand the reins of power to their political opponents, they were held to be no different than the treasonous bigots who, the Never Trumpers insisted, formed the ravenous cesspool that were Trump’s supporters.
Now, by classifying nearly every Republican politician as the second coming of Trump, the Never Trump sages could continue their appearances on the shows of Joy Reid and Don Lemon, wearing their sandwich boards and ringing their bells to warn the rubes about the impending political apocalypse should Republicans gain even a modicum of political power. It was surely a lucrative pastime after they’d burned their credibility and alienated all those who’d once called them conservative colleagues.
And yet, for all of their prognostications of doom, I’ve yet to see any real inquiry into what Never Trumpers see their endgame to be. They want to completely destroy the Republican Party, but what does that mean? How many seats in the House and Senate do Democrats have to hold before Wilson and Nichols are satisfied? Do the remaining members of the GOP have to take to the pulpit in downtown DC and publicly apologize for being a member of a party that once supported Donald Trump, and vow to never do so again? Will there ever be a level of mea culpa that Conservatives can achieve in order to placate The Lincoln Project and stop them from working to get Democrats elected?
And what happens if such a threshold is ever reached? If they succeed in their goal of driving the GOP into dust, would any self respecting Conservative trust them again? Who would actively seek their guidance on anything having to do with electing Republicans when they’ve spent the better part of a decade pandering to Democrats and their voters. They simply would have no place even in a contrite and remade Republican Party.
And there’s plenty of reasons to doubt men like Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt. Their organizations have been embroiled in sexual scandals and accused of outright theft. If they can’t even run their resistance grifts without such improprieties, who would let them have any hand at crafting a Conservative platform?
And yet, if The Lincoln Project gets their way, will there even be a Republican Party worth returning to? Never Trumpers seem to believe that once they crush the GOP, that the Democrats will let it rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis to fight for power on an even playing field once more.
The truth is that the Democrats will never allow that to happen.
If Never Trumpers get their wish of total hegemonic Democrat control, what do they expect will be done with that power? With the types of leftist supermajorities that Never Trumpers seem to strive for, the change to the electoral landscape could be seismic. From packing the Supreme Court to abolishing the Senate to granting statehood to Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, if Democrats dominate the government there is no telling how drastically things could change. There may be no way for the Republicans to win another election in any of our lifetimes if The Lincoln Project achieves the destruction they espouse.
What is far more likely is that men like Nichols, Steve Schmidt, and Rick Wilson want the Republican Party to endure in its current form for as long as possible. For if it reforms, they no longer have an enemy to sell to MSNBC. If it dies, they have no place in what is rebuilt from the rubble.
They need Donald Trump to remain at the forefront of things because they make the most money arguing that he should be done away with. If Trump is ousted, Never Trumpers have an undeniable fiscal interest in branding whomever is left as a man or woman who is cut from the exact same Trumpian cloth. This is because these arguments are easy to make and easy to package and sell. It’s what they’ve been doing since before 2016.
Donald Trump is the man who made The Lincoln Project relevant. There’s no way they will dump him now, no matter how much they grift otherwise.