As someone who will not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in November, I don't share the view of some fellow conservative anti-trumpers who seek to ostracize and shun any Republican who is now jumping on the bandwagon. I understand all of the sound reasons to back the party's standard-bearer, as I always have up to this point. To my surprise, it turns out there is a line I won't cross in the service of party loyalty, and Donald Trump is it. Others' line either doesn't exist, or lies elsewhere. Though I stand by my reasoning, I don't think it's productive for #NeverTrump to view the large majority of Team Red that will rally behind the nominee as the enemy. While I will not forget those who actively helped him secure the nomination during the primary process when he could have been stopped, the case for General Election coalescence is understandable. But I'm not sure I follow Noonan's derisive barb about re-making the GOP as a 'slash-the-entitlements' party in a post-Trump era. Dealing with the dangerous, destructive national debt is a mathematical proposition, about which only one party has been remotely serious. Paul Ryan has worked tirelessly to fashion an innovative and desperately-needed reform program that was politically palatable to the general public. He worked hard to sell his party on it, then proceeded to demonstrate that it wasn't electoral anathema. Donald Trump is in denial about the problem, and opposes real solutions. His latest proposal to deal with the debt is truly reckless and ludicrous; it would be savaged and ridiculed mercilessly by conservatives if a prominent liberal floated anything like it. Is Noonan suddenly so comfortable with Nominee Crazy Man (her words) that she's willing to blithely nudge the Republican Party into joining the Democrats in Debt Fantasyland?
But we who are still in the #NeverTrump camp would appreciate a return of the courtesy from the likes of Newt Gingrich and Laura Ingraham. They really need to shut their mouths about how destructive we are to "party unity" by not coming around. "Party unity" is not on our list of priorities at this point.
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