At this point, it’s almost cruel how the liberal media keep trotting out Joe Walsh, the failed primary challenger, as an example of principled Trump opposition. All they’re really doing is prolonging the poor guy’s national embarrassment.
Walsh went from being a racist and Islamophobic “birther” who rode the Tea Party wave to serve one term in Congress, to a rabid Trump supporter who threatened violent revolution if Trump lost, to his newfound identity as an anti-Trump stalwart. He’s clearly about as solid in his identity as Elizabeth Warren was when she identified as Native American for decades.
Now, in a new Washington Post opinion piece, Walsh joins some other extreme Never Trumpers to fully back socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders against Trump — because principled conservatism, or something. That’s right: Walsh, and others such as Jennifer Rubin and Tom Nichols, have vowed to back a communist sympathizer who would nationalize entire industries and have the government take over 70% of the economy.
And Walsh isn’t just backing Sanders — he says he’d even campaign for him!
I do not understand this logic from @WalshFreedom and other extreme Never Trumpers.
Oppose Trump all you want. Write-in or vote 3rd party.
But for a “conservative” to vote for the avowed socialist and communist sympathizer? Unconscionable. https://t.co/SHrHVnuiHp
— Brad Polumbo (@brad_polumbo) February 25, 2020
It’s not the Never Trump instinct that’s objectionable. I can see why many folks find the president’s tone and conduct unconscionable, and why, despite his numerous conservative policy successes, they might find his handling of some issues unsatisfactory from a conservative perspective. But to back Sanders is simply unhinged. It sadly shows how they’ve let Trump-hatred melt their brains.
If you’re a conservative and you dislike Trump, it makes sense to vote third-party or write in an acceptable alternative or to abstain from voting (I’m still allowed to say that, Elizabeth Warren’s proposal hasn’t become law yet). But by no stretch of the imagination can Trump’s failures and flaws justify support for Sanders. The attempts to argue otherwise are mental gymnastics of the highest order.
“If it were up to me, Sanders isn’t the guy I’d put in charge,” Walsh writes. “[But Never Trump] means you recognize that Trump is enough of a threat to our founding principles that you won’t vote for him under any circumstances. And, at least to me, it also means you’ll suck it up and support his Democratic opponent, no matter who that is.”
This massively undersells the threat that Sanders poses. He would nationalize the healthcare industry, banking, and even the internet. He backs proposals that involve spending a whopping $97.5 trillion. Plus, the socialist senator has promised to abuse his executive power to circumvent the Senate if they won’t go along with his proposals. But yes, conservatives should usher him in with open arms because Orange Man bad!
Do Walsh and his fellow Never Trump grifters really expect us to believe that Trump is so “dangerously authoritarian” we ought to back a man who literally defended the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro this week? Such an argument strains credulity. In reality, Sanders’s avowed support for socialism is much more of a “threat to our founding principles” than Trump’s admittedly tumultuous presidency has been.
So sorry, Joe Walsh, but a campaign for a communist sympathizer isn’t “principled conservatism.” It’s blind anti-Trump hackery, plain and simple.
