NeverTrump Doesn’t Really Exist Anymore, Except as a Scapegoat for Trump’s Failures

There are three things that are absolutely assured in life – death, taxes, and scapegoating of “NeverTrump” after a Trump defeat.

But I am going to let you in on a dirty little secret – NeverTrump doesn’t exist, and it barely ever really existed.

Sarah Rumpf just drafted a very well reasoned article at Red State in an attempt to define “NeverTrump” and came up with this:

Plain and simple, this is what “Never Trump” means: I do not believe Donald Trump has the temperament, ethical foundation, moral code, intellectual ability, or emotional steadiness to be fit for the job of President of the United States. He lacks respect for the Constitutional principles upon which America was founded.

Trump was elected in no small part because he accurately voiced the very real frustrations felt by many Americans who are struggling financially, who feel left behind by the new economy. But Trump’s life history includes a seemingly endless string of examples when he betrayed the very kind of people who are counting on him now.

That’s a good definition, and I think her post is definitely worth reading. Mine is slightly different – it’s simply people who honestly judge Trump’s actions against conservative principles, and approve when he does right, and criticize when he does wrong.

That is not allowed anymore in our hyper-partisan age where politics is bloodsport and any kind of of criticism of your own side is absolute treason.

Whatever NeverTrump was, it existed for the sake of resisting the Donald before the 2016 election. Post-election, it has splintered into a spectrum of belligerents ranging from those reluctantly accepting Trump to those stalwartly opposing everything he does.

But it’s silly and intellectually dishonest to pretend that there’s a “movement” or organized group of NeverTrumpers. And that’s why Sean Hannity excels among Trumpers in this irrational fantasy.

Hannity loves blaming NeverTrump in his repetitive, childish, dim-witted monologues, but he rarely explains just how it is that the almighty powerful NeverTrumpers actually do anything to damage Trump.

That’s because his talking points and narratives contradict each other logically, not that logic matters anymore.

On the one hand, Trump outsmarts everyone, he’s the smartest negotiator who ever breathed, but on the other hand, he seems to be thwarted constantly by a merry band of fictional gremlins who torment him at every turn.

The less witted amongst the Trump zealots would have you believe NeverTrumpers are organizing an underground conspiracy to topple the president by confusing and undermining his allies. But the actuality is that former Never Trump associates are simply offering honest critiques of the president while pointing and laughing at the confusion readily evident in his allies.

Hannity is in no way representative of Trump supporters, he’s the exemplar of the worst of them. Don’t be a Hannity.

Another sign that “NeverTrump” doesn’t really exist anymore is that the word is nearly never used by those who are supposedly its members. It’s used as an epithet against those who still have the audacity to think for themselves instead of blindly defending the president and whatever policy whim he happens to pretend to support at the moment.

It has become a boogie man fantasy for those unable to honestly assess Trump’s failures, a crutch to lean on when they don’t want to face up his shortcomings.

But hey, keep blaming NeverTrump for his failures – the less course correction he does, the more he proves them right.