Takeover Magazine 1st issue april 15th 2016 | Page 58

Will U.S. Conservetives Mount A Third Party
Challange If Trump Is The Nominee?

Last summer, Donald Trump scared movement conservatives and establishment
Republicans—not because they thought that he would actually win the Republican
nomination, but because they feared that, in defeat, he would refuse to support the
Republican nominee. Back then, it was easy to imagine a general election pitting a
Bush against a Clinton—and a third-party bid by an eccentric billionaire throwing
the election to Hillary, just as Ross Perot’s bid arguably tipped the 1992 election to
Bill.
Trump ultimately assuaged those fears, pledging last September to support the
winner of the Republican primary process whether it turned out to be him or one of
his rivals. Today, that bet seems smart. Trump appears most likely to be thevictor,
having won three primaries while maintaining leads in nearly all of the rest. Still, I
wonder if it occurred to Trump at the time that the movement conservatives and
Republicans who pressed him to forswear a third-party bid made no commitment of
their own to support him if he won the nomination.Would conservatives dare to
greet a Trump victory with their own third-party challenge?
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