When it comes to President Trump, many Republicans have decided that resistance is futile, no matter their qualms with his polarizing style of leadership.
Tax reform; conservative judges, a reinvigorated U.S. military; these are but a few of the reasons many Republicans, voters, and politicians alike have muted their opposition to the aspects of Trump that concern them — his behavior, his chaotic White House, his nationalist tendencies, lately at the forefront with is call for steep tariffs on steel and aluminum.
But a small band of conservative intellectuals continue to hold out.
Behind Closed Doors talked to one of them, Mona Charen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, about what drove her to speak out against the president at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a three-day celebration of Trumpism, and what drives her to continue speaking out, even if she’s not sure that anyone is listening.
“The people who are just forming their political opinions now are going to think, this is what conservatism is, and this is what Republicanism is. Things like reading that awful poem, ‘The Snake,’ and suggesting that all immigrants are murderous criminals out to get us,” Charen said in her interview with the Washington Examiner podcast.
“It’s important to push back on those things and remind people that there’s a large body of people I hope, in the Republican Party who adamantly reject that tone and that insensitivity, to put it mildly, the lies — all of that, while also saying, we think” the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court “was great,” Charen added.
How should “Never Trump” conservatives go about this and avoid permanent marginalization on the Right at a time when Trump regularly scores the support of 90 percent of Republicans in public opinion polls?
“Speaking up is one thing, and reminding conservatives of certain fundamental values that this president violates on a daily basis — that we believe in telling the truth and we believe in treating women properly,” she said.
Charen, invited to speak at CPAC in late February, was heckled during her appearance on stage a part of a panel of conservative women.
The crowd was reacting to her jabs at Trump for allegedly mistreating women before he was elected president, and her chastisement of CPAC for giving Marion Marechal-Le Pen, a controversial French nationalist, a prominent speaking slot.
A few days later, in her interview with Behind Closed Doors, she did not pull any punches or back down from her initial criticism. She said it was anything but a knee-jerk decision.
“My first priority was calling out CPAC itself because they invited Marion Le Pen and Sheriff [David] Clarke and made the entire conference a worship session about Donald Trump,” Charen said. “Marion Le Pen is the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, and the niece of Marine Le Pen, who just lost the presidential race in France.”
“This family is a right-wing, nativist, borderline fascist family,” Charen said. “But [Marion’s grandfather,] Jean Marie, is anti-Semite, a racist, and a borderline facist. And Marion, the granddaughter, fully embraces her grandfather and says that he’s a visionary and that we can learn a lot from him. That kind of a person, in my opinion, does not belong in polite company, does not belong at CPAC.”
