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I share many of these criticisms of Trump personally without finding the criticisms of conservative Trump voters persuasive. https://twitter.com/John_Scotus/status/1303511778236669952
Who are the conservative/Republican presidents who balanced the budget? In recent years, they don't exist.
What makes Trump's pro-life views more performative than any recent Republican president's? I agree Reagan and both Bushes are nice guys, Mitt too, but how do the policies differ?
Even with Bostock, Trump's SCOTUS appointees have been more reliable than that of any GOP president from Eisenhower to Dubya.
Is the Trump tax cut really that differently structured from Reagan, Bush tax cuts?
And on foreign policy, you really see no difference between those that won the the Cold War (including diplomacy with a real superpower USSR vs. pissant hacker Russia) and those that have lost every war of the last 2p years?
Now on rule of law, abuse of power, yes, I think Trump critics are on firmer ground. Though few of the non-libertarian critics said the same things of presidents who were at a minimum nearly as bad, but far less transparent.
None of this is to say that there aren't serious problems with Trump. Just that blanket condemnations of conservatives who vote for him, by people who pretend to (or even really do) care about conservative principles are not grappling with why conservatives voted for them.
Them being their preferred candidates and paid clients.
It seems to me that Trump identified parts of the conservative coalition that possessed actual votes (pro-lifers, gun owners) and ignored those that did not (entitlement reformers, government cutters).
And that is not by any means a reflection of my own policy preferences.
In other words, I don't disagree with every part of the conservative coalition Trump ignored. But electorally speaking, I understand why he did. And a very ideologically different GWB mostly did too.
And I say all this with much love, and no hate, to my many friends who agreed with the original thread.
