Article by Brian C. Joondeph in "The American Thinker":
NeverTrumpers are like gnats in the summer, annoying but largely irrelevant as they don’t sting or bite. Their movement hatched when Donald Trump was running for president and they became “the resistance” against the unfit candidate who dared run for president without paying his dues as a senator or governor.
Trump was an outsider, not part of the cool kid clique within the Beltway, much like Rodney Dangerfield’s character in Caddyshack, a clown at the country club cocktail party.
NeverTrumpers are well-known former conservatives, at least before coming out as liberals. This is not unheard of. Bill Clinton was once pro-life and Joe Biden was once tough on crime and pro-law enforcement. Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, George Will, and Max Boot all at one time advocated for conservative policies. Now that they have come out, they tossed any and all conservative principles to the wind.
He has walked the conservative walk better than any elected Republican since Ronald Reagan, certainly better than most current elected Republicans. Yet NeverTrumpers oppose him in favor of a Democratic Party further left than at any time in its history.
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, NeverTrumpers have morphed into a new organization with a surprising name, the Lincoln Project, “Holding accountable those who would violate their oaths to the Constitution and would put others before Americans.” I wonder if that includes spygate conspirators attempting to overturn a constitutionally elected president who have yet to be held to account, and may never be at the rate federal prosecutor John Durham is going?
Lincoln Project founders include notable Trump-haters: Mr. Kellyanne Conway, also known as George; Rick Wilson, firmly in the Trump-loathing Bush camp, another family of so-called conservatives endorsing uber-liberal Joe Biden in the upcoming election; and Steve Schmidt, famous for directing John McCain’s anemic and unsuccessful bid for the White House in 2008.
Would Lincoln endorse Black Lives Matter, elimination of the police, or destruction of his likeness as a statue or a head on Mount Rushmore? A better name for the Lincoln Project would be the Marx Project.
NeverTrumpers hoped for alternative Republican candidates, such as Evan McMullin or Mitt Romney to become the standard-bearers, but ran into the reality of Rasmussen Reports' finding last summer, that “92 percent of likely Republican voters say Trump is likely to be the GOP nominee.”
So what better way for the NeverTrump Republicans of the Lincoln Project to advance conservatism than by endorsing Joe Biden and a Democrat takeover of America? This is called cutting off your nose to spite your face.
This is the same Joe Biden echoing Barack Obama promising that his administration, “Won’t just rebuild this nation — we’ll transform it.” How did that “transformation” turn out during the Obama years? If Joe Biden had eight years in the White House to transform America, why does he need to do it again? If the Obama/Biden transformation was so wonderful, Hillary Clinton would be living in the White House. This is the same Joe Biden saying police have “become the enemy.” Abe Lincoln would be so proud of his namesake Lincoln Project supporting this nonsense.
I do not recall the NeverTrumpers endorsing Obama and his policies, in fact some were actively working against Obama. Yet their hatred of the Orange Man is so over the top that they are now endorsing an older demented version of Obama and a far more radically left party compared to 2008.
What happens if the NeverTrumpers get their wish? If Biden wins, his coattails will likely give Democrats control of the House and Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would immediately eliminate the filibuster, giving Democrats full control of the Executive and Legislative branches of government, with the Judicial branch soon following.
Taxes could be raised with impunity, regulations added without resistance. The Green New Deal and Medicare-For-All would easily become law on a party-line vote. Democrats want to expand the Supreme Court and with full control of Congress, could easily confirm a Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Lawrence Tribe, or Michelle Obama to the high court, creating a permanent far-left majority to rewrite the Constitution.
How is that for the Lincoln Project’s fidelity to the Constitution? Is this the same Constitution NeverTrumpers have been advocating for in their think tanks and on their cruises?
Amnesty will be granted to 20 million-plus illegal immigrants. Open borders will double that number, all providing enough Democrat voters to make Republicans as irrelevant as the Green Party. These new voters will be sent to red or purples states, such as Texas, Ohio, and Florida, turning them blue, creating a permanent Democrat electoral majority, one that the Democrats will never let go or lose.
Illegals will be voting Democrat, in exchange for free health, education, and welfare. A Democrat Congress will make it legal for illegals to vote and the stacked Supreme Court will find it constitutional.
How about adding Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico as new states, four more Democrat senators, firming up their majority? This may not even be necessary as another goal of the Lincoln Project is, “to give Democrats the Senate majority” by actively campaigning against Republican senators.
This means more senators in the mold of Tammy Duckworth, who described President Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech as, “talking about dead traitors.” Do these traitors include Harriet Tubman, Jesse Owens, Louie Armstrong, and Elle Fitzgerald, all honored by Trump in his speech? Or Abraham Lincoln, namesake of The Lincoln Project, whose face sits on Mount Rushmore, another “dead traitor”? This is what NeverTrumpers support.
If Democrats regain power, they will change the rules so that they never lose power again. Lincoln Project political consultants will be unnecessary as elections will be irrelevant. Their think tanks will be as appealing as a trip to the endodontist and no one will go on their cruises. After taxes, no Republicans will have any money to contribute to their magazines and foundations.
NeverTrumpers have joined forces with the anti-American left and the Marxist BLM group all because they don’t like Trump’s style or his tweets. Since President Trump did not purchase their services and won the election on his own with a handful of campaign staff rather than scores of ego-inflated GOP consultants, the Republican establishment is pouting and willing to throw their lifetime work and principles to the wind to teach the country a lesson.
America has a binary choice in November. NeverTrumpers can’t create their ideal candidate, in the way Bill Kristol pushed fellow NeverTrumper David French as the ideal candidate to thwart Trump and his 60 million supporters. Instead it is either Trump or Biden, or Biden’s replacement if his cognition keeps slipping.
Benjamin Franklin, 250 years ago, when asked which is preferred, a monarchy or a republic answered, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.” The NeverTrump so-called “constitutional conservatives” are playing with fire, willing to destroy our republic over petty spite. President Trump is the last bulwark against monarchy or worse. NeverTrumpers are happily helping to burn down the lone gate between America the beautiful and anarchy.