How Never Trumpers Are Becoming Pro-Democracy Republicans - By Jonathan Chait

[DonViejo]

THE NATIONAL INTEREST 7:00 A.M.

By Jonathan Chait

One of the most predictable developments of the post-Trump era was that the small band of anti-Trump conservative intellectuals and Republican officials would quickly melt away. They had been repulsed by Donald Trump’s combination of grotesque character and ideological heterodoxy — opposing American alliances, free trade, and so on – but when given the chance to support Republicans who believed in traditional Reaganite principles and weren’t career criminals, politics would go back to normal, and they would return to the fold.

Instead, something surprising has happened. Anti-Trump Republicans are refashioning their identity as pro-democracy conservatives. Here are a few examples to give a flavor of their thinking. It’s not close to an exhaustive list:

David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter who was one of the first conservatives to recognize the party’s collapse into revanchism, wrote a column for The Atlantic arguing that Trump’s rise reflects not the tendency of a demagogue to inflame the majority, as the founders feared, but the power of a minority. Frum called for democratic reforms to stop the conservative minority, given disproportionate representation by the House, Senate, and Electoral College, from exercising control. “The retreat from majority rule has not only weakened the American system’s fairness, it has also wobbled that system’s stability,” he argued. “The path back to constitutional normality depends upon a reinvigoration of the majoritarian principle.”

Anne Applebaum has argued for granting statehood to the District of Columbia. The Bulwark, a magazine that has become a hub of anti-Trump conservatism, has crusaded in favor of protecting and expanding voting rights. Its editor, Jonathan Last, argues that Democrats should prioritize pro-democracy reforms:

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[OnDoutside]

1. It might be a surprise to Chait, but it's NO surprise here because I predicted it ! I pointed this

out numerous times here, even before the November election, that the well of hated from those left within the Republican Party to those criticising Trump, left them homeless. The usual heads here who said that the likes of the Lincoln Project people or other Never Trumpers would scurry back to the GOP once Trump was defeated, didn't understand the hatred directed towards them from the right. TLP for all of 2020 spoke of not only defeating Trump, but also Trumpism within the Republican Party. There's no doubt some of them were hoping that a resounding defeat in November would bring the party to its senses or a drop in support, would allow a 3rd Party space to grow. 74m voting for Trump has entirely killed that, and many have accepted that fact, which is why they are now concentrated on at least making sure Democracy can be saved. Some still do harbor hopes of creating a 3rd party but the reality is that the 2 party system is too entrenched to let a 3rd party emerge.