Let’s grow up, Conservatives: It’s about Saving Our Country

The conservative movement and varied wings of the Republican party have always had their troubles with the trending and ultimate nominee—usually right up until the nomination. This year is different. Many conservative intellectuals and party regulars are still throwing their brickbats at him. And yet, the problems and complaints about the nominee seem much the same as in previous years, if not even less significant. 

Six years before he ran for president, Mitt Romney ran for Governor of Massachusetts as a pro-choice, pro gay-rights Republican. Four years after his first run at the presidency he was the nominee. And unity in the movement and party was had. When Rudy Giuliani ran for president, many conservatives supported him, despite his also being pro-choice, pro-gay rights, an endorser of Mario Cuomo, and a man with not a few personal “family values” issues. Ultimately, he became a go-to conservative and a hero of the movement.  

Perhaps the movement and party that supported Romney and Giuliani at various times thought: “Conservative enough.” Or, perhaps they thought: “Better than the alternative.” Or, perhaps they knew what is no longer taught in Poli Sci 101 but has always been true: Republican presidents empty think tanks and staff themselves to their right; Democratic presidents empty think tanks and staff themselves to their left.  As we all learned a long time ago, “personnel is policy.”

Somehow, today, those rules of general understanding and practice no longer abide for too many in the movement.

Concerns over the conservative credentials of the likes of Giuliani and Romney, while ultimately buried and suppressed in favor of the larger cause—the country and the world—existed for other candidates, too.  It’s a distant memory now, but there was a lot of conservative-movement doubt about George W. Bush—his attack on Robert Bork, Robert Bork’s response, the whole notion of “compassionate conservatism,” and more.  Some may even remember Nancy Reagan’s 1992 comment “Kinder than who?” after George H.W. Bush spoke of wanting a “kinder, gentler” nation.  
End of day, whatever the reasons, the movement and party united—perhaps wrapping itself around the old formulation of William F. Buckley’s, “He’s conservative, but he’s not a conservative.” And as between conservative nominees and liberal ones: good enough.

Now comes Donald Trump....

Read the rest of this excellent piece by Seth Leibsohn here at American Greatness