Never Trump conservative commentator Bill Kristol said President Trump is an “infection” that must be dealt with before the issue of hyperpartisanship can be cured.
In an interview with the Washington Post published this week, Kristol, an editor-at-large of The Bulwark, said the coronavirus pandemic has eroded his hope that institutional constraints can stop Trump from implementing his policy agenda.
“We’re really going to pay a price for this terrible failure in leadership,” Kristol said. “Watching the way in which he has corroded the constraints on him within the government and gotten rid of various guardrails and corrupted certain institutions, it reminds you that four years — four years is a lot better than eight years, but it can still do quite a lot of damage.”
Kristol’s father, Irving Kristol, was dubbed the “godfather of neoconservatism,” an ideology he described himself as a liberal “mugged by reality.” Kristol has maintained his father’s belief system and vocally spoken out against Trump on a number of occasions.
“I’ve always slightly objected to the — ‘Well, Trump’s just a symptom, you know. The problem is deeper.’ Of course, that’s true in some ways. Hyperpolarization was already there, hyperpartisanship,” Kristol said, denoting that Trump resembled more closely an “infection” than a “symptom.”
“He’s the infection that makes the underlying medical issue inoperable. Which is why you need to deal with the infection first, which is why politically, you need to deal with Trump before you can solve other things,” he said.
Kristol said that he’s disgusted by the behavior of congressional Republicans, mentioning Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. John Cornyn, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy by name for working with Trump during his presidency.
“I can’t honestly conceive of working with Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn and Kevin McCarthy. I’m just disgusted by what they’ve been doing, really, for the last three years, that I don’t much look forward to that,” he said.
Kristol also said he is shocked to find the Republican Party has unequivocally accepted Trump as their leader, calling their “capitulation” to Trump a “failure of civic and political courage.”
“I guess I am a little depressed by the failure of civic and political courage in standing up to Trump,” he said. “We’re not back in Germany. We’re not in the Soviet Union. We’re not even in Hungary, in Venezuela. I mean, what are you really putting on the line?”
