Apparently #NeverTrump is the new Ross Perot: preemptive scapegoat in case the Democratic Party wins. Let’s be serious for a minute. Say there are 300k political Puritans who are so heavily invested in liberty that they couldn’t vote vote for Trump if he picked Calvin Coolidge for his running mate. (Actually don’t say it. If Coolidge could run with Trump, I could vote for him.) Three hundred thousand is less than one tenth of a percent of the population, and less than the margin of error of any election in living memory. So what?
It’s always been my pleasure to be a member of an elite minority, and frankly, I doubt there are that many highbrow sons of Liberty among us. But even if there were 3 million of us, that’s hardly all the fish in the sea. If Trump fails, it will be because he was a poor and unpersuasive candidate, like every political failure before him.
If you think Trump should win the election, kindly make arguments in his favor, or at least help me to distinguish positively between him and the candidate to his immediate political left. It’s really tedious to hear you blame me because I’m still waiting to be impressed.
If Trumpublicanism is so wonderful, what it needs is momentum, not a movement to circle the wagons. Even now he pivots left. By all means pivot with him. Help him build the momentum he needs to beat the dreaded enemy. I will stay over here, quietly being a wet blanket. It’s really not helpful to attack the blanket; that’s not the direction your presumptive leader wants to go.
To add to the cacophony of metaphors, #NeverTrump is now a very tempting tar baby. It’s not going anywhere; you’re not going to change its mind; and it can really gum up your program. The fact that there is a tar baby at the right end of the political spectrum is not much of a narrative. Picking a fight with the tar baby – now that will make a story. It may be the story the tar baby wants to tell, but it really isn’t the story that will win an election.
If you actually want Trump to win, help him woo the middle. If you don’t like to see him flirting with the middle, come sit down next to me and this tar baby.
neumatikos 