Commentary

“Donald Trump’s decisive win was a stark rebuke not just to Democrats, but to Never Trump Republicans, a movement that I joined when it began in 2016 before Trump won the GOP nomination.” – Ashley Pratte Oates, U.S. News contributor

In my November 18, 2024 blog, I made note of how the biased campaign coverage led to the leftist media losing viewers and readers, and I answered my own question – would that be a wake-up call for them – Nah.

Perhaps you heard the husband-and-wife duo, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” requested a meeting with President Elect Trump.   He agreed and the meeting took place at Mar-a-Lago, the first time they spoke together in seven years.

The pair congratulated Trump on running a “great and flawless campaign, one for the history books,” and spoke of his cabinet selections.

“The meeting ended in a very positive manner, and we agreed to speak in the near future,” Trump said, noting that he expected meetings to take place with other media people.

While explaining that he felt “an obligation to the American public, and to the country, to be open and available to the press, if not treated fairly that will end.  I am always looking to give a second and third chance, but never willing to give a fourth chance – that is where I draw the line.”  That’s when his descriptors “enemy” and “fake news” are used.

Mediate reported that viewership began dropping off Morning Joe the hour after the pair announced they met with the President Elect.

Reactions to their 180

“How long have they been telling us that he’s an existential threat, that he’s a Hitler-esque figure, that he’s a fascist that women will die, will die if he gets elected.  Well, they’ve done a 180 as their ratings circle the bowl.”  – Megyn Kelly, “The Megyn Kelly Show, SiriusXM.

After 20 years as a journalist, Kelly struggled to find the perfect phrase to respond to the Scarborough’s visit with Trump, and in the end told the pair to “go f**k yourselves.”

Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald said, “the MSNBC hosts take the crown for being one of the most humiliated and pathetic pairs in corporate media.

Never Trumpers Never More

Fellow blogger Ben Domenech, writing “The Politically Lonesome End of Never Trump,” commented that “Joe and Mika burying the hatchet really does seem like a perfect encapsulation of the end of Never Trump.”

“It ends one of the most vile and corrupt strains of political activity in the past eight years,” Domenech wrote, “the professionalized Never Trump movement, which raised scads of cash, selling an obviously failed product to Trump’s antagonists. The Never Trump movement had no guiding principle other than ‘Orange Man Bad.”

He wrote about the “old Washington” conservatives – George Will and Bill Kristol – power-hungry individuals, frustrated at being shut out of the Republican administration or denied access to the halls of power, yet granted the imprimatur of righteousness in their mission by the captains of media.”

In Lisa De Pasquale’s piece in BRIGHT, “Has the Never Trump Cash Cow Run Out of Milk,” she writes that “the movement lacked a coherent ideology beyond opposing Trump and Republicans broadly,” adding “we aren’t likely to see these efforts with a second Trump victory.”

Other commentary

In Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker’s column, “Four more Years of Trump May Make American Normal Again, he noted that “Donald Trump’s supporters and critics alike have called his election victory a revolution,” but pointed out that “Trump himself once promised it would mark a retribution. To me it has more the feeling of a revolution.”

Baker wrote about a number of issues on his mind, including our overindulgence of illegals in our “sanctuary cities,” the past restraint of drilling for our natural energy resources, bias on the color of one’s skin, gender mutilation without parental consent, and the freedom to express one’s views.

While Baker opines that “installing oddballs in high office will result in anything other than mayhem and mischief,” he expressed optimism four years from now that “it will become normal to tell migrants they must leave” and that “they understand they don’t have an automatic right to live in the freest and most prosperous country on earth.

“It will have become normal for the nation to exploit its enormous energy advantages for its own economic benefit and know that the planet won’t explode as a result.

“It will have become normal again for children to be helped to respond to the inevitable strains and traumas of growing up not by having their genitals cut out, but by receiving loving guidance and care from family and society.

“People will be judged on the basis of their talents and ability, not on their claims of oppression by ancestors six generations in the past.”

Still Misguided

U.S. News contributor Oates, who I quoted earlier, still believes Trump has vowed revenge against Never Trumpers, and writes, “we’re not finished yet. It’s essential for disenchanted Republicans and former Republicans such as myself … to challenge Trump and offer an alternative vision of a democracy that is rooted in freedom and the Constitution,” as if they are not in his vision for America first.

The out-of-touch Ms. Oates refers to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as “once-powerful, now sidelined Republican politicians.”  They were never powerful.

She makes no mention of Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Bill Cassidy and Thom Tillis, who may not be Never Trumpers, but could prove to buck Trump’s agenda.

I must agree, however, with her statement, “In the aftermath of the election results … Never Trump Republicans have never looked more like a dead, irrelevant entity.”  

Even Peggy Noonan the Wall Street Journal columnist who represents the elite east coast finger-in-the-air crowd, came out in opposition to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s recommendation that the resistance against Trump be recharged:

“A repeat isn’t in line with the mood of the country, which now isn’t electrified by politics but exhausted by it.  Demonstrations would make the Democrat Party look weaker, as if it has no other moves.

While the Never Trumpers movement may have faded since Trump’s return in 2024, with the failure of lawfare and other attempts to stop him, Washington bureaucrats will be trying to stop his disruption of the federal government, especially the plans of DOGE.

“The effort to bankrupt, disgrace and banish Donald J. Trump to a jail cell in Riker’s Island has instead helped pave the road right back to the Oval Office.  The unprecedented abuse of the legal system alienated the electorate.” – Joseph Moreno, The Spectator

Similarly, Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., suggested that Trump opponents “should refrain from resurrecting their disingenuous and reckless rhetoric about Trump.  It only strengthened Mr. Trump with the U.S. electorate and discredited themselves.”

May God continue to bless the United States of America as we put America First.