Liberals Might Have Gotten a Taste of What Makes Trump So Popular
19th June 2020
Megan McArdle is always worth reading.
The left’s long march through the centers of culture has influenced mainstream values, and conservatives saw tech employees being fired for opposing gay marriage, bakeries shut down by civil rights commissions, and their own employers “inviting” them to publicly declare themselves allies of various social justice causes, removing even the option of keeping tactfully quiet on the job. Of establishment Republicans who said moderation was the path to political power, they demanded to know what all that power was for, if not to protect them from this sort of thing.
Thus, instead of a moderate conservative who would defer to liberal sensibilities on touchy issues such as immigration, they chose a champion whose superpowers were reflexive belligerence and utter indifference to social mores. When the GOP establishment warned that nominating Trump would end with Democrats running things, the base responded, “So would nominating one of you.”
The civil war that ensued saw Schwarz’s iron law working in both directions: Both the #NeverTrumpers and the Trumpists were willing to lose the election before they’d allow the other side to run the party. Come November, both sides may get their wish.