“You can’t handle the truth!”
So Jack Nicholson’s character told Tom Cruise, playing a military lawyer in the 1991 movie “A Few Good Men.” Neither, apparently, could most of the people at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, when our friend Mona Charen told them that they and their movement had been sold out by their soi-disant leaders in their race to embrace President Trump.
This is not to impugn the millions and millions who voted for Trump in order to spare us four more years of the Clintons, nor the Nikki Haleys and Jim Mattises of the world who joined the administration and are doing great service, nor those non-Trump conservatives who have now and then joined him in backing discrete proposals. They, contra MSNBC and its smug packs of pundits, are serious people doing serious work who merit our gratitude.
But I do mean to impugn the self-proclaimed purists, the ardent defenders of small government cred and moral cohesion, who fought to strain out the gnats of the McCains and the Romneys of the world, yet swallowed the Trump camel whole.
Prior to Trump, the purists in the conservative movement fell into three different camps: the small government and fiscal conservatives; the social and/or religious conservatives; and Fox News and talk radio, which rode herd on all of them, sort of like sheepdogs, watching out for defections and keeping the stragglers in line. Back in the day, fiscal conservatism and the cause of small government were a really big issue. When the Tea Party roamed, the slightest sign of a slip brought a primary challenge. Jim DeMint spoke for his many adherents when he proudly proclaimed that he’d rather have 30 conservatives in the Republican Senate caucus than 60 Republicans who were not hard-liners.
Surely he and they would hold the line against the free-spending, government-loving, ex-Democrat. Wouldn’t they? Think again. In 2013, he went to the Heritage Foundation, which fired him four years later, complaining that DeMint and other Tea Party favorites had led it and other so-called conservatives into the big-spenders camp.
Back in the day, the social and/or religious conservatives fancied themselves as cultural guardrails on the alert against coarse talk, lewd acts, and loose public morals. They were incoherent with rage at the Bill Clinton scandals, thrilled when they managed to bring him to trial, and incoherent again when he won. Never, they said, would they allow such a lout, creep, and rogue into their own party. Surely, they would hold the line against someone whose business career was brimming with scandals and multiple lawsuits, who conducted his many affairs on Page Six and front pages, who dodged the draft five times claiming problems with bone spurs, and who defamed many war heroes, living and dead.
Surely, they’d hold the line against this unholy blasphemer. Wouldn’t they? Think again: clergymen and/or the professional moralists led him by the hand into the very heart of the Temple; with Franklin Graham saying Trump’s adulteries made him as one with King David, and Bill Bennett telling Jonah Goldberg to “get off his high horse” when he gagged.
Back in the day, Fox News and talk radio led the charge against John McCain and Mitt Romney; in 2008 boosting Romney as the barrier contra the maverick; in 2012 pushing anyone as the barrier against Romney; whose record as the liberal governor of Massachusetts was suddenly simply too much to be borne. Surely they’d hold the line against this anti-conservative? Think again: his many sins against what they called their beliefs were no match at all for his insults and slanders, which were the ultimate keys to their hearts. These are the facts that CPAC can’t handle. Sadly, they are also true.
Noemie Emery, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”
