The Future Of The Never-Trumpers

What happens to all of the Never-Trump Republicans and conservatives if Donald Trump's time as President comes to an end on November 3?  

It's a question I've been thinking about for a while, even before the pandemic radically changed the dynamics of this fall's election.  Frankly, it's hard for me not to regard them with a very mixed array of feelings.  These are the same people who courted what we now summarize as the Trump vote for decades, knowing all about the bigoted and otherwise crazy views that motivates this voter cohort, but regarding it as a kind of political plutonium that they could manipulate in each election cycle in order to maintain their own grip on power, and never imagining for a minute that they could somehow let it get so far away from them that it would, in effect, swallow their own party and turn it into a nightmare that threatens everyone. They have been systematically feeding this monster for almost the length of my entire soon-to-be-64-year life, and now it's out of the cage, never to return.

Never to return?  I'm not entirely convinced that the Never-Trumpers look at it that way.  Rather, I think they view their momentary anti-Trump alliance with Democrats and Republicans as basically one of convenience.  Perhaps it was most eloquently and concisely expressed by George Will a few weeks back on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC program, "The Last Word."  Will stated that he was going to be voting for Joe Biden on November 3, not in support of Biden's agenda, or that of the Democratic Party, but as a endorsement of democracy and of someone who could restore the pre-Trump political order, in which Democrats and Republicans could do partisan battle in a world in which neither had to worry about an American fifth column.

Will's candor, as well as his commitment to real democracy, are admirable, especially since they have the effect, among other things, of formally accepting Democrats and their views as being tolerable within a truly free society.  Frankly, that's not something he has always seemed to say in the past, nor is that a point on which many of his conservative colleagues would agree with him, especially when it comes to his position that all Republicans have to be voted out.  Some of them, at the very least, still seem to view the Republican Party as something that can somehow be salvaged, and object to the idea of voting it completely out of office.  Peggy Noonan, for example, seems to take this view, as though there was nothing wrong with the party that finding another Ronald Reagan and revisiting the politics of the '80s was enough to cure everything.

It won't.  The 80's are gone, as there is almost no New Deal left to rebel against except Social Security, and Trump's unilateral payroll-tax cut threatens the existence of even that.  And there is no ex-New-Deal-Democrat-turned-Republican, like Reagan, to inspire confidence in so-called "Reagan Democrats."  What's left of the GOP is a political apparatus whose leaders care only about maintaining the grip of the investing class on the rest of us, since their support of that grip helps to maintain their cushy jobs on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.  You have only to look at the reflexive support for Trump from Mitch McCONnell's Senate, through impeachment, a pandemic, and a depression to see the truth of that.

I will be the first to admit that I have enjoyed the fruits of the Never-Trump movement, especially its influence on voting trends by way of advertising, such as the work being done by the Lincoln Project.  It feels good to see all of that razor-edge Republican marketing expertise being used against Trump.  But, one way or another, it's not going to last beyond November 3.

And then what?

Does the Never-Trump movement transform itself into a third, moderate-to-conservative party, one that focuses on conservative tax and defense policies while accepting some form of a social welfare state? Or does it enter into some kind of an alliance with the Democratic Party, trying to pull it slightly to the right on those policies in return for a commitment to at least a part of the progressive agenda, such as single-payer health insurance, something that is supported in Europe even by conservative parties?

I honestly don't know which one of these alternatives is more likely to win out.  I'm not even entirely sure which one would be best for the nation--or, for that matter, the narrowly partisan interests of the Democratic Party.  I can say this much:

Forget about nostalgia for the Age of Reagan.  It is over, and it will not come back.

That is a truth that Never Trumpers have to face, in making decisions about how to go forward.

And if they are interested in talking about an alliance?

Well, I can think of at least one progressive Democrat willing to have that conversation.