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Election 2016: What the Republicans are giving up by supporting Trump #NeverTrump

This is part of a series of posts on Election 2016.

Before I get deep into the details, I wanted to start with what I think the GOP is giving up by supporting Donald Trump. For the last few decades, certainly by the 1980’s, Republicans have tried to make themselves out to be the conservative party that believes in traditional ideals.

What are those ideals?  They are generally a combination of a nostalgic view of 1950’s suburbia with evangelical Christianity.  Candidates should be truthful, consistent, faithful to their wives and family, loyal, patriotic, charitable, and of course they should be anti-abortion and strong Christians.

And the candidates the GOP has put forward, starting with Ford, have always had some semblance of a claim to those characterizations (though of course nobody could really measure up to all of them in the ways often suggested).  Reagan, H.W. Bush, Dole, W. Bush, McCain, and Romney all built these personas. You could certainly challenge Reagan and both Bushes, and W. Bush had some very notable historic flaws, but he was reborn and reformed.

It is highly arguable that none of these important traits are exhibited in Trump.
Truthful: When fact checkers review Trump, they all find the same thing, which is what anybody that watches him talk immediately notices: He lies about everything. He lies so much that fact checkers are used by most news organizations now (and they all say he lies).  He does this all the time, and sometimes will stick to the lie even when it has been soundly debunked, like his stance on the Iraq war. 
  • Consistent: Trump has a different view on each position he takes. John Kerry was derided for being a “flip flopper” because he was against the Iraq war before he was for it, but Trump does this all the time. 
  • Faithful to wives and family: Trump cheated on his first wife with his second and his second wife with his third, and he has bragged about sleeping with multiple married women on several occasions, even in his own book. He has made odd remarks about his daughter, like how she could be called a “piece of ass” and how he she was “hot” and how he would date her if she wasn’t his daughter.  Who in their right mind thinks these are traditional family values?
  • Loyal: Trump doesn’t pay contractors.   He isn’t loyal to his family. He fights with his own party.   If you cross him, he comes after you.
  • Patriotic: Trump has done small, unpatriotic things, like as a businessman not buy American and hire illegal immigrants.  But it’s in the name of business, so maybe a traditional Republican can go for that. His suggesting that Russia should hack the DNC to find old emails, especially given that that looks like exactly what they were trying to do, is so far out of bounds as to be nearly the definition of unpatriotic.
  • Charitable: Does anyone think Trump is charitable?  He likes to boast about his wealth, but he may be the least charitable billionaire in the world
  • Anti-abortion: Trump has said repeatedly that he is pro-choice, including for partial-birth abortion. Only recently (when he started to run for President) has this changed. He barely explained this shift. And he completely bungled the discussion when first asked in the national stage, showing he likely just didn’t know what the issues were and how the Right generally sees the issue. 
  • Strong Christian:  When Trump speaks on Christian matters, it is pathetically laughable. He says he doesn’t like to have to ask for forgiveness, and he has no need to ask forgiveness, and never has, mainly because he doesn’t make mistakes. (That’s … um … pretty heretical, theologically.)   When he tries to quote from the Bible, he says “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians,” pretty clearly showing he does not talk about this much.   His avowed Presbyterian church says he is not an active member, and he doesn’t appear to know the dogma of the church.  Just imagine if this were a Democratic candidate.

What does all of this mean? The GOP, which used to hammer Democrats for being pragmatists, are now making no pretense of saying that their President must have good character. Now it is all about the Supreme Court, or just about keeping Hillary out of the White House. Trump can do literally anything and keep the votes.

And so, next election, when the GOP wants to argue that they take the high ground, they will not be able to do it successfully. Country first? Nope. Family values? Nope. Even strong evangelical chops? Huh uh.

The GOP is giving up most of its core historical “high ground” in order to back a candidate that will very likely lose, and any future attempts to take that mantle will likely be viewed as hypocritical. This was not the case before Trump, but it is now, and will be for the next several elections.

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