This is the unhinged #NeverTrumper attitude in a nutshell. This piece is by “Gabriel Schoenfeld, an adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and a recently registered Democrat”
Trump & Sanders drove me to become a Democrat. Other disgusted Republicans should join me.
For many years I’ve loathed the Democratic Party. I still do. But I recently registered as a Democrat myself. Now that the Democratic nomination contest is on the verge of crystallizing, it is a critical moment for Republicans and ex-Republicans to join me in my seemingly incongruous act.
I became a Republican with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980. This was the party of the Constitution, of limited government and a forward-leaning American posture around the world. It was Reagan who helped topple Communism in the Soviet Union and shepherded countries like South Korea and Taiwan into the democratic fold. It was Reagan who enshrined an intelligent brand of originalism by appointing the great constitutionalist Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court.
But on the day Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, I was out the door. As a lifelong New Yorker until quite recently, I know that three-card monte is a scam. I would never lend an iota of support to Trump and his shills. I immediately registered as an independent and devoted my efforts as a writer to exposing Trump’s flimflammery.
The party that I once regarded as a pillar of our constitutional order is now eating away at that order like termites, indulging every one of Trump’s transgressions against longstanding constitutional norms and against decency itself. The party that once stood against dictators is now led by a man who admires Russia’s Vladimir Putin and says he fell in love with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. As much as I loathed the Democrats, I loathe these craven Republican cowards even more.
Many of us were highly skeptical of Donald Trump, but, with a choice of Hillary or Donald, we held our noses and voted against Hillary. At the end of the day, Trump has done great. Several excellent Supreme Court picks, lots and lots and lots of great lower court picks, a great economy, and so much more. Notice, though, that Gabriel didn’t even wait to see what Trump would do before switching to a party he loathes. Gabriel, like pretty much all the #NeverTrumpers, has abandoned all their beliefs because of Trump the person, rather than what he has actually done. No, he’s not perfect, but, then, neither was Reagan. Amnesty, anyone?
I still have grave misgivings about the Democrats. The party has made a cult out of abortion rights and driven right-to-life Democrats from its ranks. This is wrong on the merits and extraordinarily foolish as an electoral matter. It means turning away an untold number of voters who would stand with it on other issues, voters whom it treats in a contemptuous and supercilious manner.
The Democratic Party is also rife with politicians hostile to the state of Israel, beginning with the “Squad” and extending outward on its left flank. Mirroring the British Labour Party, the Democrats have tolerated left-wing anti-Semitism, including time-honored tropes about Jews wielding undue power and control. This even as it practices a form of identity politics that divides Americans by race and ethnicity, celebrating some groups while remaining largely indifferent to the plight of others.
But, Orange Man Bad.
But that is not the whole story. In the inverted world that Trump has brought about, the Democratic Party is becoming the party of the Constitution. It stands for the separation of powers, for independent courts, for an apolitical Justice Department, for a law-abiding presidency. In foreign affairs. It has become the party of NATO and alliances, of law enforcement and the intelligence community, of protecting the integrity of the FBI and the CIA.
I’m going to stop here and let you read the rest, because my sides hurt from laughing and eyes from rolling. These people are nuts.
