Why "Never Trump"

This column is another one that I wanted to post on during my prolonged absence, by an never-Trump Republican who has become pro-Trump.  The beginning is revealing:

This may seem like an odd moment for saying so, but a year into the presidency of Donald Trump, I’m elated.

Trump was not my first or even second choice for president, but a full two years ago I predicted he would win. I also predicted he’d be a progressive president, which explained why I was not among his supporters and why I am so pleased now.

Expecting Progressive Trump was a reasonable assumption. Trump supported the 2009 stimulus, the auto bailouts and the bank bailouts. He’d recently left the Democratic Party and had raised a ton of money for the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi and Charles E. Schumer. He’d supported single-payer health coverage, tax increases and even Planned Parenthood.

He was a New York liberal who had conquered the Republican Party in part by promising a good Supreme Court nomination. That was the most I allowed myself to hope for when he won.

Note here the reasons she did not oppose Trump as President.

It wasn't because he knew absolutely nothing about government or policy and showed no interest in learning.

It wasn't because he saw facts and evidence as things he could make up as he pleased, on the fly.

It wasn't because he had the attention span and impulse control of a small child.

It wasn't because his entire career was built on fraud.

It wasn't because he seemed to have no concept of the rule of law, or of the public good aside from his own personal interests, or because he appeared to think that if he won the federal government would be his own private property.

It wasn't because he was blatantly appealing to hate and celebrating base impulses as "authenticity."

It wasn't his threats to use libel and anti-trust laws to silence his critics, or his encouragement of violence at his rallies.

And it wasn't alarm at the prospect of such a man having access to our nuclear codes.

Presumably she would have preferred a candidate without all that baggage.  But none of it was an actual deal-breaker so far as she was concerned.  The only real deal-breaker was the fear that he wouldn't follow conventional conservative priorities and that he was really a liberal.

Likewise, I have occasionally heard the argument that if Trump had run for President as a Democrat, he would also have won.  And I have occasionally heard the argument on the liberal side that we should support the nomination of Trump in the theory that he would be less doctrinaire than other Republican.

All of this ignores just how much all those shortcomings really were deal breakers to any liberal worthy of the name.  Or, I would have to assume, to any conservative worthy of the name.  In the end, all that really matters to the author is the economic royalist agenda.  If accepting egregious corruption, hate mongering, authoritarianism, and and policy by impulse is the price to be paid for cutting taxes and gutting regulation, in the end she was willing to dismiss all these things as trifles of style -- distasteful, yes, but nothing close to a deal breaker.

She goes on to say that Trump may have been forced into the arms of conservatives by the "absolutism and extremism of his critics, whether among the media, traditional Democratic activists or the anti-Trump right" and their "stridency and spite."  Which is simply another way of saying she has no idea why some conservatives (or liberals, for that matter) might conclude that the issues are not the issue and that Trump's character, temperament, and unfitness for office ultimately trump (pardon the pun) any mere trifles of policy.

And that set of priorities explains why some never Trump conservatives have ultimately warmed up to him, while others are turning away from the Republican Party altogether.

Update:

Here, by contrast, is a conservative who remained Never Trump:

If Trump were merely proposing a border wall and the more aggressive employment of tariffs, we would be engaged in a debate, not facing a schism. . . . Trump’s policy proposals — the details of which Trump himself seems unconcerned and uninformed about — are symbolic expressions of a certain approach to politics. The stated purpose of Trump’s border wall is to keep out a contagion of Mexican rapists and murderers. . . . Trump’s policy ideas are incidental to his message of dehumanization. 

So how do we split the political difference on this one? Shall we talk about Mexican migrants as rapists on every other day? Shall we provide rhetorical cover for alt-right bigots only on special occasions, such as after a racist rally and murder?

The point applies in other areas. While some Republicans have criticized media bias, Trump has attempted to systematically delegitimize all critical information as “fake news” and referred to the media as “the enemy of the people.” While other politicians have pushed back against investigations, Trump has attempted to discredit federal law enforcement as part of a “deep state” plot against him.

In other words, what this author sees as the danger in Trump is not any specific policy, which can be grounds for compromise.  It is his authoritarianism and hate mongering.  These are not mere trifles of style, not a mere aesthetic distaste.  They are core.

And, on the liberal side, this author quotes an anti-Trump National Review article during the primary:

“If Trump were to become the president, the Republican nominee, or even a failed candidate with strong conservative support, what would that say about conservatives?” National Review lamented. “The movement that ground down the Soviet Union and took the shine, at least temporarily, off socialism would have fallen in behind a huckster.”

But note here the real fear, which is "socialism," defined by an economic royalist and the existence of any government regulations or services.  The fear is that Trump is a "huckster," impersonating a conservative (i.e., an economic royalist), but really a "socialist," i.e., someone who is not an economic royalist.  The National Review is now expressing its relief that Trump really is an economic royalist after all, and nothing else matters. 

The author goes on to complain:

And the conservatives who warned that Trump’s authoritarian instincts made him unfit for the presidency of a great republic have mostly withdrawn the accusation, even as new confirming evidence appears every week. It is almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that “authoritarianism” simply meant to them the fear that Trump would abuse his power in the service of an agenda other than their own. Trump has dispelled every fear that he would fail to uphold the conservative agenda, while confirming every fear that he does not respect the Constitution. They have revealed that conservatism has no neutral or abstract standards of good government. What was clear only to critics of conservatism before the election is now clear to conservatives themselves: An authoritarian can be a Republican in good standing.

But, once again, presumably to an economic royalist, an authoritarian simply means a "socialist," i.e., someone who favors government services or regulations. An economic royalist (which Trump most certainly is) cannot be an authoritarian from the National Review perspective.