When Never Trumpers become Never Republicans

The GOP logo.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

Members of the Republican establishment who refused to throw their support to Donald Trump spent the four years of his presidency hoping first that he would lose his bid for re-election and then that things would return to something approaching the pre-2016 normal once he was gone. But the appalling events of Jan. 6 and its aftermath have shattered that hope. As David Frum points out in The Atlantic, most of these Never Trump Republicans have now become Never Republican Democrats.

This could be very good for the Democratic Party, which (unlike the GOP) can't win national elections while pursuing a base-mobilization strategy. As Frum explains, the progressive Democratic "base is not cohesive or big enough, and does not live in the places favored by the rules of U.S. politics." That means Democrats need to build broad coalitions to win, and voters fleeing the now-thoroughly Trumpified GOP can be a big part of that.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.