Donald Trump and many of the reporters who cover the Republican presidential race declared last night that the “Never Trump” movement had died. This displayed a misunderstanding of the phrase, and the movement.
Here are a few:
End of #nevertrump. https://t.co/fE8I205Z93
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 15, 2016
Here’s another:
Well, so much for #NeverTrump https://t.co/pQ9eTcVitS
— Dan Eggen (@DanEggenWPost) July 15, 2016
And this one:
It’s really over, @edatpost @danbalz report: the ‘Never Trump’ movement has run out of options https://t.co/oO3pXVSmjx
— Matea Gold (@mateagold) July 15, 2016
But this is a total
All of these reporter tweets preceded this triumphant tweet from Trump himself (who supposedly was taking the day off politics out of respect for those killed in the terrorist attack in France).
But this is a total misunderstanding of the phrase. #NeverTrump didn’t mean #HopefullyRepublicansCanNominateSomeoneBesidesTrump.
It meant “no matter what happens, I won’t vote for Donald Trump.” Many NeverTrumpers hoped to block Trump from getting the nomination, but it’s telling the hashtag became widespread as Trump moved towards inevitability as the nominee. Just because he’ll be the GOP nominee doesn’t mean conservatives or GOP establishment types have to support him. Some will vote Hillary. Many will vote for Gary Johnson. Many will vote third party or write in a vote.
These reporters and Trump imply that “Never Trump” types will now accept Trump. Many of them won’t, though. Many of us don’t believe that voting is always about choosing the lesser of two evils — or that it’s clear which evil is lesser in this case.
Trump, it seems, doesn’t understand the nature of his opponents.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
