Nominally-conservative #NeverTrumpers are growing ever more depressed.
Doomsayers who warn “the end is nigh” if so-and-so politician is elected become deeply depressed if the so-and-so is elected and horrible things do not occur.
From a conservative perspective, Trump has not caused horrible things to occur. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yet the nominally-conservative #NeverTrumpers are growing more depressed, they’re making ever more dire prophesies, and now, with the end yet to appear nigh, dammit, they’re doing everything in their power to make it so.
George Will originally predicted that “Trump would be the most unpopular nominee ever… (he) would create down-ballot carnage sufficient to end even Republican control of the House… and guarantee a Supreme Court with a liberal cast for a generation.” After Trump was elected and the Republicans held Congress, did Will announce he’d been mistaken? He did not. Instead he announced his resignation from the Republican Party.
Trump has confounded Will’s nightmare predictions ever since. He’s guaranteed a conservative cast to the Supreme Court for a generation, and Republican fortunes for the midterm elections are rising. You might think this would make Will happy, but Will isn’t the happy sort. Besides, his opposition was never about the Supreme Court or losing the Congress. It was only about hating Trump. Will is now calling for Republicans to vote for Democratic candidates in 2018, figuring, probably, that a Democratic takeover of Congress will produce the disaster he has so often and wistfully predicted.
Former conservative Max Boot has joined Will in calling for Republicans to abandon their party. His Fourth of July column explains: “Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must be destroyed before it can be rebuilt.” Why is such drastic action necessary? Because Trump’s Republican Party, according to Boot, “doesn’t even know what it stands for, and… in fact may stand for positions that I find repugnant.” Exactly like Hitler’s Germany and Tojo’s Japan.