Read on Twitter
"When Republicans are in charge, it's important to understand why they're governing like extreme partisans. When Democrats are in charge, it's important for them to govern with conservatives in mind." https://twitter.com/DouthatNYT/status/1336465911574913024
"It was very bad when that guy robbed you at gunpoint and gave me half your money, but I just think the solution here is understanding why he did it. If you take the money back you're just like him"
Never Trumpers like Douthat are conservatives. That doesn't inherently discredit their views on the Trump GOP, but it creates a quandary: Trump's GOP accomplished a lot of conservative goals, just in corrupt, undemocratic, indefensible ways. Do they want to give that back?
A scant few seem to understand that they can't keep the ill-gotten gains - that unless conservative political aims are undermined by their enthusiastic embrace with a debased fascist, conservatives will simply learn that crime pays, lying pays, cheating pays, demagoguery pays.
But far more can't seem to fully embrace that, when their movement fell in with Trump, it signed away its legitimate policy aims, too. So they're embracing this ludicrous idea of post-Trump comity, where the bank robbers get to keep the money.
It's almost so obvious it feels ridiculous to say, and yet, it needs to be said: IF THE POST-TRUMP GOP LEAVES THE TRUMP YEARS WITH A MATERIALLY IMPROVED POSITION ON KEY ISSUES, THE LESSON WILL BE THAT TRUMP WAS GOOD AND HIS TACTICS AND POLITICS SHOULD BE REPEATED AND REPLICATED.
