RUTHFULLY YOURS

One of the most intriguing political shifts Tuesday was Donald Trump’s relative popularity with union members. Exit polls show that Hillary Clinton did not win union households in nearly the numbers that President Obama did in 2012. Although major unions like the AFL-CIO supported Mrs. Clinton, millions in the rank and file didn’t. Mr. Trump’s victory should provide hope to any union members alienated by their increasingly out-of-touch leaders.

Best of all, growing numbers of these workers have the right to decide that they don’t want to support a union that doesn’t represent them. Twenty-six states now have right-to-work laws, which bar unions from getting workers fired for not paying union dues. Similar legislation might be on the way after Republicans’ sweeping victory on Tuesday. Even more consequential could be Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees. If the president-elect makes good on his promise to choose constitutionalists, the court could enshrine right-to-work protections for every government employee in the country.

Start with the states where right-to-work bills have been blocked by Democrats. Last year the Missouri legislature passed one with strong majorities: 92-66 in the House and 21-13 in the Senate. But Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed it, claiming that “it’s wrong for the middle class and it must never become the law of the Show-Me State.”

Term limits have ended Gov. Nixon’s tenure, and on Tuesday voters rejected his preferred successor. Instead they elected a Republican, Eric Greitens, who says he believes in right to work “because it would stop companies and union bosses from taking a cut of your paycheck to support their political organization.”

The story in New Hampshire is similar. In 2011 the legislature tried to make the state right-to-work. Then-Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, vetoed the bill. A strong majority of the New Hampshire House tried to override the veto, 240-139, but they came up 12 votes short of the two-thirds needed. A similar bill didn’t make it through the legislature last year, though Gov. Maggie Hassan would have likely vetoed it anyway.

But on Tuesday the state elected a new Republican governor, Chris Sununu. “We haven’t brought a major business into the state in eight years,” he said earlier this year, adding that right to work could change that. If so, New Hampshire would be New England’s first right-to-work state.

In Kentucky right-to-work legislation died in the Democratic House last year, after it was passed by the Republican-dominated Senate. Yet now Republicans have taken full control of the legislature for the first time in nearly a century. The GOP flipped a whopping 17 of the state’s 100 House seats on its way to a 64-36 majority. In a postelection newspaper op-ed, Gov. Matt Bevin included right to work in his list of priorities for the next session.

At the Supreme Court the stakes are even higher, as Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association shows. The suit involves Rebecca Friedrichs, a California teacher who wants nothing to do with her union. She argues that being forced to financially support the government union violates her First Amendment rights. CONTINUE AT SITE

White House press secretary Josh Earnest raised some eyebrows on Wednesday when he engaged on the question whether President Obama would pardon Hillary Clinton before leaving office. Earnest did not indicate that the president had made any commitment one way or the other, but the fact that he is clearly thinking about it is intriguing.

The question primarily arises because there is significant evidence of felony law violations. These do not only involve the mishandling of classified information and the conversion/destruction of government files (i.e., the former secretary of state’s government-related e-mails). It has also been credibly reported that the FBI is investigating pay-to-play corruption during Clinton’s State Department tenure, through the mechanism of the Clinton Foundation — the family “charity” by means of which the Clintons have become fabulously wealthy by leveraging their “public service.” Thus far, Mrs. Clinton has been spared prosecution, but we have learned that the e-mails aspect of the investigation was unduly limited (no grand jury was used); and the legal theory on which FBI director James Comey declined to seek charges is highly debatable, even if it has been rubber-stamped by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The proximate cause driving the pardon question, however, is President-elect Donald Trump’s commitment that if victorious, he would appoint a special prosecutor to probe his rival’s “situation.”

This is one of what will no doubt be many things that Mr. Trump will find were easier to say in the heat of the moment (a contentious debate between the candidates) than to do in his new political reality. During the campaign, nothing damaged Clinton as badly as the specter of criminal jeopardy. But now Trump has been elected, and he has a governing agenda that will require cooperation from Capitol Hill. A prosecution of Clinton would provoke Democratic outrage, which means media outrage, which, in turn, means Republican panic.

Much of the outrage is ill-considered — although that doesn’t stop some smart people from expressing it. The objection is that the United States is not, for example, Turkey, where the Islamist despot persecutes his political opposition. But the comparison is apples and oranges. Clinton would not be under investigation for opposing Trump; the probe would be based on evidence of non-trivial law-breaking that has nothing to do with Trump. We know this because Clinton’s misconduct has already been the subject of ostensibly serious investigations by the incumbent administration’s law enforcers. If your position is that a politician may be investigated only if her own party is in power, then you are the one politicizing law enforcement — and creating an environment that breeds corruption.

What Comes Next for Never Trump The path forward is clear. By David French —

Let’s begin with a simple proposition: Political might does not make right. Winning an election doesn’t render Trump virtuous or wise, nor is the fact that most Never Trump pundits thought he was likely to lose relevant to our assessment of the man’s character, temperament, or political positions. Winning almost 60 million American votes doesn’t make him right about NATO or trade. It doesn’t mean that dishonesty, deception, and fraud are suddenly acceptable traits in an American president. And it doesn’t make the alt-right any less evil.

It does mean, however, that he is now the president of the United States and that we all have a series of moral and political obligations to him — obligations that must be divorced from pride, self-interest, or wounded egos. My friend Ben Shapiro is fond of saying, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” Neither do elections. They may adjust political calculations, but they don’t adjust our core responsibilities.

To my mind, our mission as Never Trumpers is clear:

First, we can’t give an inch on our commitment to integrity and character in American leadership. Just as there was pressure to circle the wagons around a scandal-tarred Trump in the general election, there will be pressure to do so with each new scandal in the Trump administration. It’s imperative that conservatives continue to resist the Clintonization of the GOP. Short-term political victory isn’t worth the long-term electoral and cultural costs currently in full view on the other side of the aisle. Democrats were extraordinarily smug after Bill won two terms in the White House and prevailed in the impeachment battle. They were less smug after a scandal-weary public rejected Al Gore, and they’re certainly less smug today, after millions of Democrats stayed home rather than vote for another thoroughly corrupt Clinton. Bill was an extraordinarily talented politician who guided his party through a politically prosperous eight years in the White House, but what is his long-term legacy? He warped our nation in ways that haunt us today.

Second, we must reject the premise that “nationalism” beat conservatism. In multiple states, conservative Republicans actually outpolled Trump. The party emerged with its House and Senate majorities intact, and with more governorships and state legislatures than it controlled before. Trumpism has no greater mandate than conservatism, and conservatives need not yield to its demands. If and when conservatism clashes with Trumpism, we cannot yield to arguments for trade wars, to attacks on the First Amendment, or to weakness and dangerous impulsiveness in foreign policy.

Third, we have to swallow our pride and acknowledge when and if we’re wrong and Trump and his supporters are right. We shouldn’t be afraid to praise Trump when he makes the right call. Humility goes a long way toward achieving reconciliation. This should be one of the most obvious points, yet for we fallen humans the most obvious and correct course is often the most difficult. We almost always want to be proven right. It can be deeply satisfying, even when the truth we’re right about is deeply discouraging. I believe that Trump is conning his supporters, that he’s dangerously ignorant, and that he does not have the knowledge, instincts, or temperament for the presidency. Truly, I want to be wrong.