But as usual, they have it all wrong. The truth is, this is the biggest favor these people could do for the Republican Party, because it allows the refuse and toxins that have been quietly colluding with the deep state and Democrats for decades to be flushed out into the open.
Did you ever wonder why so many promises have been broken? Why so few actual conservative policies have been enacted this century? Why from the launch of endless wars in the early years post 9-11 to the betrayal of the Tea Party to the terrible nominations of John McCain and Mitt Romney, conservatives never really got wins, even when we were winning elections?
Well, some of the primary culprits have outed themselves as the unprincipled hacks and self-serving operatives they always were, undermining actual conservative policies and sabotaging the Republican Party and its base.
The most recent big name toxin is former Vice President and endless-war champion Dick Cheney. But he follows his daughter, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, former “Republican” governors Jim Edgar of Illinois, Bill Weld of Massachusetts and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, who followed 238 staffers for previous Republican presidential candidates (Bush, McCain, Romney).
They wrote: "Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That's to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable."
Honest, ideological disagreements? Are these people in a 1996 time loop? Do they think the real issue outside Orange Man Bad is the top marginal capital gains rates? What world are they living in?
One could potentially understand such shifts if this were a moderated Bill Clinton Democratic Party from the 1990s that worked with Newt Gingrich to balance the budget and bring down crime. But this iteration of Democrats? The one that has a soft spot for Hamas terrorists and can’t choose the obvious vice presidential choice because he is Jewish? The one that can’t tell you what a woman is, but can say that a biological man can use women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and sports facilities? The one who supports taking minors away from parents and making them wards of the state for the sole purpose of transing them and leaving them sterilized and suicidal? The one that openly pursues literal Marxist policies such as price controls on food and looting money from people before it is even realized? The one that throws open our border to every horrible gang-banger, child-trafficker, drug-runner and enemy of the United States to just walk on in? The one that throws political opponents in prison and wants to pack the Supreme Court like every Third World tyrant?
Those who claim that it is a high-minded act of conscience as moral, conservative, Constitutionalists to throw away what they claimed they believed to support the above agenda of destruction have something more going on than Trump Derangement Syndrome.
It’s maybe understandable why some people would not enthusiastically or even publicly endorse Trump. But, I, and many others like me, held our noses and voted for Bush and (his highly suspicious “compassionate conservatism,”) McCain, Romney and (for me, anyway) Trump in 2016. I never got who I wanted, although I’m in crawl-over-broken-glass mode for Trump now. I and other actual conservatives voted for the Republican anyway — as a principled choice because the Democrat was even worse. Because we actually believed what we said we did.
And don’t just chalk it up to personal hurt feelings, because Trump was mean to the Cheneys. Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were savaged by Trump in the 2016 primaries, but they got past it and worked with him and are supporting him. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was brutalized by Trump during this primary, but he has endorsed him and is fundraising for him. Same with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who made clear why: “This is about my family. This is about America. If you don't like him, say you don't like him, but you can't say that his policies are worse than Kamala Harris'. That's just not a fact.”
The Republican Party is keeping the fighters who have some idea how late the hour is, and gloriously losing the saboteur statists who stabbed the base in the back for decades and will now wander in the political wilderness, now that no one wants them. The GOP will be stronger and more effective with the toxins out of the party.
Rod Thomson is a former daily newspaper reporter and columnist, Salem radio host and ABC TV commentator, and current Founder of The Thomson Group, a Florida-based political consulting firm. He has eight children and seven grandchildren and a rapacious hunger to fight for America for them. Follow him on Twitter at @Rod_Thomson. Email him at [email protected].
