The media have been fascinated with the incredibly rare anti-Trump Republican. While polls find 90% of Republican voters intend to vote for Trump, reporters continue to ignore them and obsess over the rare outliers. These intrepid souls, willing to endure overexposure, are lavished with lucrative commentator roles, flattering profiles, and renewed relevance. However, as the novelty of dismissing Trump in increasingly strident terms has worn off, some of these media darlings are now discovering the need to pursue a second act to maintain the attention. They have chosen to target the entire Republican Party and its Senate majority in particular.
While many establishment Republicans opposing Trump simply resent their diminished influence, there are principled reasons they could cite. First, Trump has explicitly broken with traditional Republican positions on trade and immigration, imposing tariffs and reducing even legal immigration. Before his election, there was strong mainstream Republican support for Trade Promotion Authority and the idea of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, if not Barack Obama’s specific deal, as a hedge against China’s growing influence. Second, Trump has demonstrated no interest in deficit reduction and open hostility to entitlement reform. Both were hallmark priorities of Speaker Paul Ryan, the Republican nominee for vice president in 2012.
Third, Trump has pursued an “America First” foreign policy and has challenged traditional allies and engaged with adversaries. He renegotiated NAFTA, questioned the utility of NATO, announced American troop withdrawals from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and highlighted his personal relationships with the authoritarian leaders of North Korea, Russia, and China. Even when President George W. Bush invaded Iraq, he assembled dozens of countries into a “coalition of the willing” to enhance his claims of legitimacy.
Finally, his opponents cite Trump’s personal behavior, management, and intemperate comments as unbecoming of the office.
Ironically, Trump’s willingness to upend conventional norms was the reason voters elected him. They were looking for an outsider to “drain the swamp,” i.e., take on the entrenched elites in both parties. Trump’s opposition to particular Republican orthodoxies more popular with party leaders than voters (for example vowing to protect Social Security and attack the nation’s trade imbalance with China) endeared him to voters. Trump has pursued Republican priorities important to his supporters — for example, cutting taxes and regulations, increasing military spending, appointing conservative judges, defending Second Amendment rights, promoting pro-life policies, and aligning with Israel.
Many Never Trumpers have transferred their anger at Trump to Republican senators, raising money and running ads to help Chuck Schumer become the majority leader. While The Lincoln Project has targeted Mitch McConnell, Joni Ernst, Thom Tillis, and Martha McSally, Republican Voters Against Trump has decided to focus on Trump. Ironically, the most vulnerable Republican incumbents, including Susan Collins, Tillis, and Cory Gardner, represent swing states and exemplify the moderate Republicans Never Trumpers claim to represent. The most ardent Trump supporters, such as Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz, are not at risk of losing their seats. Working to defeat centrist senators will only solidify Trump followers’ control over the party after he is gone. The primary sin these senators have apparently committed is their unwillingness to condemn Trump publicly.
While the media never expected Democrats to abandon Obama over his stretching of the Constitution to accommodate Obamacare or IRS harassment of conservatives, they criticize Republicans for their unwillingness to condemn Trump after each controversial tweet. They feign shock that politicians act like politicians, i.e., avoid saying and doing things that would seriously jeopardize their reelection. Republicans have no incentive to antagonize the leader of their own party, especially when he enjoys nearly universal support within that party and is pursuing policies popular with them and the party’s most committed members. Symbolic denunciations would have no practical impact and would undermine what little influence they have over his behavior behind closed doors. The most immediate impact of attacking Trump would be to guarantee a potent primary challenger that would, at the very least, weaken an incumbent. Trump’s 2020 primary challengers’ inability to gain traction demonstrates this approach’s futility.
Republican officials may be forgiven for ignoring the media and Democrats who call on them to commit political suicide with pointless protests against Trump. These two groups didn’t support their candidacies, don’t share their policy goals or political principles, and will always find new reasons to condemn Republicans. Never Trumpers may want to reconsider their political bedmates.
Observing Joe Biden’s rising poll numbers, Senate Democrats are suddenly open to abolishing the filibuster. The rule apparently threatens democracy when Republicans comprise the majority but frustrates the founders’ intent when Democrats rule. Never Trumpers fool themselves if they believe newly empowered Democrats would pursue the “nuclear option” to advance centrist, bipartisan policies. They pretend Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, not Sen. Joe Manchin, is the aberration within the Democratic Party. Democrats are committed to identity politics, increased regulation of the economy and people’s lives, and prioritization of wealth transfer over creation.
Never Trumpers need look no further than Obama’s first two years, which gave the nation Obamacare, then-unprecedented stimulus spending and deficits, Dodd-Frank, and Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court. They should take Biden at his word, as his campaign promises position him to the left of every Democratic president.
Never Trumpers claim to support many of Trump’s policies and to oppose many the Democrats propose, such as the Green New Deal, public option, abortion on demand, and tax increases. Yet, if they oppose the reelection of Republicans and support the elevation of Schumer and Pelosi, they should admit they are Democrats. This label would admittedly render them less interesting in green rooms and cocktail parties.
It is one thing for Never Trumpers to oppose Trump’s reelection, quite another to condemn Republicans who do not join their crusade. Never Trumpers may have principled reasons to work against Trump and sincerely believe Republicans can put country over party by supporting their position. They should similarly consider the nation’s welfare and stop working to defeat senators whose fundamental policy beliefs they claim to share.
Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) was governor of Louisiana from 2008-2016. He ran for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
