The Left’s Blind Spot for the Never Trumpers

Let me be the first to welcome them with open arms. As a lifelong Democrat, unabashed liberal and political junkie, who am I to shut the door on such an esteemed group as the recently anointed Never Trumpers. Those “Establishment Republicans” who, through a combination of moral rectitude, ideological faithfulness and downright patriotic duty, have cast away the party affiliation that has defined their professional and personal lives for decades. They rightly and loudly proclaimed that their party, with its core orthodoxies of limited government, fiscal restraint and global leadership, has been hijacked by an insidious strain of American populism. Yes, we know the superstars of the Never Trumpers, the new media darlings of the Left: Joe Scarborough, Nicolle Wallace, Ana Navarro, George Will, Steve Schmidt, David Frum. Oh, how we applaud their bravery, willingness to speak truth to power, and impassioned defenses of our democratic institutions.

Not so fast. This Democrat welcomes the roster addition, but you’ve got a long way to go before you win over the locker room.

Your willingness to silently stand by for decades as the Republican party stoked, exploited and incited racial divisions for political gain does not earn a free pass. Why are we hearing from you now? Trump is merely the id of the Republican base, the first to say out loud what so many of his supporters have long thought in private: that nothing good has come from the browning of America. But he is merely the culmination of a 50+ year, uninterrupted devotion to exploiting white resentment. From Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and “Silent Majority” to Reagan’s “welfare queens” to Jesse Helms’ “Hands” advertisement to Bush Sr’s “Willie Horton” scare tactic, Republicans of every stripe since 1964 have directly or indirectly benefited from an endless parade of dog whistles and code words. Today’s Republican Party and its Trump base should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. It is the logical end game and creation of Pat Buchanan, Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes and an endless cadre of strategists and consultants who defined the Republican Establishment.

Are we to actually believe that all the celebrated (and self-righteous) Never Trumpers are shocked, SHOCKED! to learn that their party helped exploit racial divisions to elect Republicans all these years?

The sad truth about the raging new crush of the Left is that none of these Never Trumpers ever raised a voice before Trump said out loud what we all suspected was said behind closed doors. None of them ever considered leaving a party whose DNA was encoded with the politics of white resentment for decades. Why should their sins of omission, namely, enjoying the electoral spoils of this race baiting while not endorsing it themselves, be overlooked? My guess is that Joe Scarborough’s Florida 1st Congressional district, the “Redneck Riviera” as he so often reminds us, had many voters who supported the candidate with an R next to his name because it was the “white party”, and not because the Pensacola public libraries could barely stop those Milton Friedman books from flying off the shelves. Ms. Wallace presents a far more direct case study. After witnessing how the Bush 43 team eviscerated John McCain in the crucial 2000 South Carolina primary with the ugliness of racially tinged dog whistle attacks and rumors, she quit the party in disgust. No wait, she signed up for two terms of service with the Bush crowd.

If I had to guess, the Never Trumpers would tell us that their commitment to the core principles of conservatism was their North Star, that any incidental ugliness within the party was an unfortunate distraction under that famous Big Tent and was no cause for over-reaction. Yet close your eyes, tune into MSNBC, and recall how many times you’ve heard the Never Trumpers castigate Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and rank and file Republicans for holding their noses during Charlottesville because a tax cut was on the way. Their hypocrisy is radioactive. The very same rationalization of the “ends justifying the means” that guided their political careers, is quite literally their primary criticism of current Republican leadership.

The reality is that a huge core of what we now call “Trump’s base” has actually been the bedrock of the Republican Party’s base since 1964, the single most reliable voting block in its coalition. The Never Trumpers are political professionals. They all knew this. They all rationalized it away as they enjoyed the electoral spoils of racial divisiveness. Yet now they claim the moral high ground?

So what would I like from this group? How about a mea culpa. How about an apology. How about less self-righteousness given their silent complicity in sustaining an ugly chapter of our political history? Then I’m willing to let them into the locker room. In the meantime: welcome to the team. Suit up.