The Donald delivers

Conservatives made a deal with The Donald. It's paying off.

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Since Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, I have repeatedly heard some version of the following from conservatives who declined to back the Republican presidential nominee in 2016: If I had known that Donald Trump would keep his promises on judges, I would have voted for him.

In replacing the late Antonin Scalia with equally conservative stalwart Neil Gorsuch, and with the opportunity now to replace Kennedy with a more reliable conservative vote, President Trump has the chance to shift the nation's highest court rightward for a generation. But he also has an opportunity to fill a more immediate political need: consolidating his support among the Republican base and further marginalizing what's left of the "Never Trump" right ahead of the midterm elections, where turnout is critical.

As Trump's job approval ratings among Republicans approach George W. Bush's post-9/11, it may seem unnecessary to settle this intra-party feud. But what Never Trumpers lack in numbers they more than make up for in influence — as columnists, television commentators, and GOP political operatives. And these elite anti-Trump conservatives really do speak for a much larger constituency who have always had serious reservations about Trump but voted for him anyway, however reluctantly.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

During various low points of the Trump administration, anti-Trump conservatives tweaked the president's Republican defenders for answering every (justifiable) criticism of the president with "But Neil Gorsuch!" However, after the recent 5-4 rulings on public sector unions, religious liberty, and other contentious issues, "But Gorsuch" is sounding like a stronger argument. And if Trump can do Ronald Reagan one better by actually getting a reliable conservative to fill Kennedy's seat, he will have delivered where Republicans who are more personally virtuous and devout have long failed. In so doing, Trump is building his political capital with social conservatives, despite comments and personal conduct that has the potential to embarrass them, as well as the fact that the organized religious right mostly supported Ted Cruz in the primaries.

The conservative case against Trump was always two-fold: His personal flaws would cripple his presidency and discredit conservatism, and he was more of a liberal Trojan horse than a true conservative anyway.

For some, this latter part was a bit of a cop-out. Trump nevertheless had a long enough record of espousing moderate to liberal positions on issues of importance to conservatives that this wasn't an unreasonable argument.

You could even now make a solid case that Trump's record on spending and the debt isn't conservative. But that is true of plenty of Republicans who Never Trumpers supported. Meanwhile, Trump has been better for conservatives on judicial and social issues than we had reason to expect, and he has aggressively cut taxes and regulations. Overall, the personal criticisms of Trump have held up while the ideological objections so far have not.

Maybe the long-term damage Trump does to conservatism's brand outweighs his contributions on judges. But that is a tougher case to make than simultaneously arguing Trump is too liberal and too flawed. And that's why the Never Trumpers still seeking to discredit Trump's conservatism on judges, like former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt and Washington Post conservative Jennifer Rubin, sound an awful lot like liberals.

Provided the president nominates a conservative judge, it will be hard for conservatives in good standing to oppose him or her — and a confirmation would give Trump a solid claim to a respectable conservative legacy.

All of this could be completely undone by developments in the Trump-Russia probe or an economic downturn (especially if precipitated by trade wars) or a blowout in the midterm elections, to name just a few scenarios that could vindicate the Never Trumpers' political judgment. With the Supreme Court weighing in the balance, however, at the moment conservatives are getting quite a lot out of their deal with The Donald.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.