The Dilemma of Conservatives Who Say They’ll Never Vote for Donald Trump
Some conservatives who care about foreign policy above all other issues view Trump himself as a national-security threat. Bryan McGrath, a conservative blogger and former Navy officer, recently posted the text of the oath he took when he was sworn into the Navy, in which he swore to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and wrote, “Because I view Donald Trump as domestic threat to the internal stability and external security of the United States, I cannot be faithful to this oath and vote for him.”
.. Peter Wehner, a top adviser to George W. Bush, wrote, “Mr. Trump is precisely the kind of man our system of government was designed to avoid, the type of leader our founders feared — a demagogic figure who does not view himself as part of our constitutional system but rather as an alternative to it…. For this lifelong Republican, at least, he is beyond the pale. Party loyalty has limits.” (Wehner was careful to add that he would not support Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.)
.. It’s like Wolfgang Pauli’s famous crack, “That is not only not right, it is not even wrong.” He doesn’t even have a bad character. People with bad characters can have strengths. As far as I can tell he has no character. He’s a bully with subordinates. He does business in ways that good businesspeople despise—and he’s not even very good at that. He says things about people, especially his wives, that are so obnoxious that calling them obnoxious doesn’t come close to how awful they are. He constantly lies about things that can be checked. He brags incessantly—really unattractive in itself—but he doesn’t even brag about things that he could appropriately be proud of. The guy is pathetic.
The oddest thing about his popularity with white middle-class and working-class males is that if he lived next door to them, they would despise him.
.. Not backing Trump is one thing, but many anti-Trump Republicans may soon have to grapple with the question of whether they may actually need to support Clinton, assuming she’s the Democratic nominee. For ideological conservatives the question may come down to which candidate would be worse for their movement.
.. They may soon have to choose: Would they rather have as President an enemy they can oppose, or one for whom they are—in more ways than one—responsible?