The Atlantic
The Conservatives Who Sold Their Souls for Trump
The rage and shame of the anti-anti-Trumpers is getting worse.
By Tom Nichols
August 26, 2024, 7:35 PM ET

. . .
When Trump decided in 2015 to run for president as a Republican (after years of being, at various times, a Democrat, an independent, and a Republican), the GOP establishment reacted mostly with horror. At the time, it claimed to be appalled by Trump’s character—as decent people should be—and rejected him as a self-centered carpetbagger who would only get in the way of defeating Hillary Clinton. Lowry’s National Review even asked some two dozen well-known conservative figures to spend an entire issue making the case against Trump.
. . .

The reality, however, is that much of the conservative opposition to Trump in 2016 was a sham—because it came from people who thought they were safe in assuming that Trump couldn’t possibly win. For many on the right, slagging Trump was easy and useful. They could assert their principled conservatism and their political wisdom as they tut-tutted Trump’s inevitable loss. Then they could strip the bark off of a President Hillary Clinton while deflecting charges of partisan motivation: After all, their opposition to Trump—their own candidate!—proved their bona fides as ideologically honest brokers.

It was a win-win proposition—as long as Trump lost and then went away.

But Trump won, and arrangements, so to speak, had to be made.
. . .

Stepping outside of years of partisan tribal affiliations comes with professional and social costs (and for politicians, electoral consequences). But principles are sometimes burdensome things; that’s part of what makes them principles. The behavior of the anti-anti-Trumpers continues to be an inexcusable betrayal of the values they once claimed to hold. Many of them spoke, even passionately, against Trump—and then they shuffled into line. And for what? One more federal judge? A few billion more dollars in the account of a donor?

It’s one thing to sell your soul cheaply. It’s another to keep taking out second and third mortgages on it until all that’s left is debt and shame.