Takeover Magazine 1st issue april 15th 2016 | Page 60

Wehner added:
I should add that neither could I vote in good conscience for Hillary Clinton or any of the
other Democrats running for president, since they oppose many of the things I have stood for
in my career as a conservative — and, in the case of Mrs. Clinton, because I consider her an
ethical wreck. If Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton were the Republican and Democratic nominees,
I would prefer to vote for a responsible third-party alternative; absent that option, I would
simply not cast a ballot for president.
Joe Scarborough declared on Morning Joe, “I think Haley Barbour and a lot of the
Republican leaders would much rather Hillary Clinton be President of the United States than
have Donald Trump represent them as a Republican.” And it is hard to imagine any die-hard
Bush loyalists supporting Trump after his attacks on Jeb and George. Indeed, it is easy to
imagine them delighting in denying Trump the White House.
Putting them altogether, that’s quite a diverse anti-Trump coalition.
There are, of course, significant obstacles to an anti-Trump insurgency, like the difficulty of
getting on the ballots of many states as an independent. Here’s the blogger Allahpundit
injecting additional skeptical analysis:

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If conservatives stay home and Trump wins, it’s proof positive that Trumpism is a winner for
the new Republican Party — at least until Trump passes from the political scene and a less
charismatic character who can’t get on television anytime he or she wants inherits the
leadership. Conservatives would be left in the wilderness, roughly where Trump’s white
working-class base has been for the past few decades.
If conservatives stay home and Trump loses, what then? They’ll be blamed by Trumpists for
his defeat, not unfairly. That rift will run very deep. And even if the rift heals, all sorts of
Republican pols and aspiring pols are studying Trump’s playbook right now to see how his
coalition might be reassembled in the next few elections. People like to joke that Trump’s
success means we’re destined to see many more celebrities run for office, which is probably
true but does a disservice to Trump in suggesting that his victories are purely a function of his
fame. (They aren’t.)
What we’re certainly going to see more of, though, is Trump-style populist center-right
candidacies — protectionist, nationalistic, Jacksonian on foreign policy. Maybe what we’ll find
is that the Reagan revolution and the last few years of tea-party orthodoxy were just a phase
in which the GOP was transitioning back to an ideologically broader party, a la the days when
Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater were both contenders to land at the top of the ticket,
except this new party may be even ideologically messier than the old one. Whatever
happens, it’s hard to imagine Trumpists returning to their not-even-a-partner role in the GOP
coalition. Why should they, after this year’s success?
Many Republicans may see things that way. But a third-party run does not require unanimity
among Trump skeptics. It only requires enough conservatives to launch a campaign. And it
seems to me that there are a lot of conservatives who earnestly believe that they have no
reason to support a Republican Party headed by Trump. In fact, they’ve spent the last eight
years convincing themselves that rebelling against non-conservative Republican candidates
is among the noblest of fights.