Here's his reasoning.
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"The best hope for what’s left of a serious conservative movement
in America is the election in November of a Democratic president, held
in check by a Republican Congress. Conservatives can survive liberal
administrations, especially those whose predictable failures lead to
healthy restorations—think Carter, then Reagan. . . ."The stain of a Trump administration would cripple the conservative cause for a generation. . . . If the next presidency is going to be a disaster, why should the GOP want to own it? . . .
"Conservatives are . . . supposed to believe that it’s folly to put hope before experience; that leopards never change their spots. So what’s with the magical thinking that, nomination in hand, Mr. Trump will suddenly pivot to magnanimity and statesmanship? Where’s the evidence that, as president, Mr. Trump will endorse conservative ideas on tax, trade, regulation, welfare, social, judicial or foreign policy, much less personal comportment? . . .
[Citing a recent op-ed in the WSJ by Bobby Jindal, who advised voting for Trump as the lesser of two evils, Stephens counters:]
"The deeper mistake that Mr. Jindal and other lukewarm Trump supporters make is to assume that . . . the policy disasters he anticipates from a Clinton administration will be indelible, while Trumpism poses no real threat to the conservative ideas [Jindal] has spent a political career championing. This belief stems from a failure to take Trumpism seriously, or to realize just how fragile modern conservatism is as a vital political movement. . . .
"For conservatives, a Democratic victory in November means the loss of another election, with all the policy reversals that entails. That may be dispiriting, but elections will come again. A Trump presidency means losing the Republican Party."
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Bret Stephens is not the only conservative thinking this way. Better to lose the presidency and retain control of the House, at least -- and preserve the moderate conservative movement from its baser and nativist version. All this is good for the Democrats up and down the ballot. Republicans will have so many different strategies, going in different directions, that it will be impossible for them to unite. Maybe we'll win it all.
Ralph
