I legitimately don't understand it. Maybe it's because I'm not important enough, high-profile enough, or have the near totality of my professional and social circles pressuring me otherwise, but for the life of me I cannot understand why it is so difficult for a conservative columnist to support things that are conservative, and oppose things that are not.
Is this about Donald Trump? Peripherally, I suppose. During the 2016 Republican primary, I understood the "Never Trump" impulse and movement. Many conservatives concluded (correctly, I believe) that Trump had never been, and still wasn't, one of them. They believed that he would bring about tumult and disorder with his brand of populism, potentially splintering the conservative movement for decades to come. So, they pledged not to support a non-conservative for the nomination, no matter what.
But once Trump became the nominee and then eventual president, "Never Trump" didn't even make sense. It somehow morphed into a logically-challenged perspective that said opposition to Trump in whatever circumstance was always good and always right. But what about when Trump nominated conservative justices? What about when Trump reinstated the Mexico City policy? What about when Trump enacted tax cuts for the country? Who would think it was "principled" for a conservative to oppose those things?
Why can a conservative not applaud Trump's successes in judicial appointments while condemning the billions he levied in tariffs, completely violating free trade and free market principles? Why can a conservative not applaud Trump eschewing the idiocy of political correctness while condemning his sometimes bizarre foreign policy maneuvers that threatened allies and coddled enemies? Why can a conservative not applaud Trump's trolling of propagandists masquerading as media while condemning his penchant for surrounding himself with shysters and conmen?
But instead, an entire industry of "Never Trump" conservatives was born. Bill Kristol chucked the conservative Weekly Standard and started what has become a thoroughly anti-conservative, Democrat-friendly rag, The Bulwark. To my great dismay he took with him one of my previously favorite writers, Mona Charen, as well as Amanda Carpenter and several others. So often now I see what they write, like Charen's recent "Other than murder, crime rates haven't gone up under Biden" nonsense, and ask, "What happened to these people?"
And when it comes to that last question, there's no one that I find myself asking that question about more these days than former National Review, current Dispatch writer David French. French had, at one point, become arguably the most reliable, effective conservative Christian voice in political punditry. Then Trump, Covid, and the "woke" movement happened, and that same guy is suddenly tweeting things like this:
It's been a week and I still can't get past that word choice. "A welcome development?" To whom? A conservative? A Christian? What is French talking about?
Josh Shapiro touted on his own website the endorsement from the radical Human Rights Campaign that applauded him for his commitment to sex-change surgeries being performed on minors. Moreover, Shapiro supports the legality of murdering an infant human in the womb up until the moment of delivery.
French's take on Mastriano notwithstanding, no conservative in their right mind would "welcome" any development that sees such moral degeneracy secure the reins of power in one of the country's most populated states. Again, why wouldn't a conservative who rejected Mastriano tweet something like this:
Very glad to see Mastriano won't get anywhere near the office of Governor, but such a shame that the only alternative to voters had to be a dangerous man like Shapiro.
Why not that instead of calling it a "welcome development" to see a man whose policy preferences results in the sterilization and mutilation of kids' genitals become governor? Aren't those positions also "dangerously unhinged," Mr. French?
After all, from everything he wrote in the years leading up to 2016, it's more than fair to say that French saw Hillary Clinton as a dangerously corrupt bad actor in American politics. When she was defeated in 2016 by Donald Trump, did French consider that a "welcome development?" Not at all. He lamented Trump's victory because of the 45th president's moral baggage. Personally, I find that a completely reasonable, even principled thing to do.
But if your Christian principles prevent you from celebrating Trump's defeat of Clinton, how do they not prevent you from celebrating Shapiro's defeat of Mastriano? Is it fair to say the only logical explanation is that those principles have apparently changed? Rather than morally calibrating them by a righteousness that transcends politics, you've chosen to center them around the applause of pseudo-sophisticates?
Perhaps there's another reason, but I'd say seeing so many self-professed conservatives conducting themselves like this, is anything but a "welcome development."
