The Never Trump Foxtrot

There's an old spinning wheel in the parlor, 

Spinning dreams of the long, long ago...

-- "The Old Spinning Wheel",  1933.

For your edification, the former-Republican dance in four easy steps.  

Step 1:  Reagan!  Sigh.

Sarah Longwell, from this podcast, beginning around the 7:00 minute mark:  People [are] always like, "Well, you guys were Republicans and so back then, how could you have done this?" I can't tell you.. Ronald Reagan used to have this whole bit about and and [George H.W. Bush] they talked about immigration...Uh Ronald Reagan would say the greatest thing about America is...

Step 2.  It was never like this in the Before Time.  

Longwell:  It was never like this coming up...

Now we have to strap on the seven-league boots and jump all the way over the actual history and actual trajectory of the actual Republican Party during Ms. Longwell's entire adult life.  Because, fun fact, Ms. Longwell was born the same year Reagan was elected.  

She was eight years old when he left office.  

She was 12 when Bush Sr. got whupped by Bill Clinton.  

So her "memory" of what the Republicans were like back in the day is based entirely on myths and fairy tales passed down by people whose political, social, and economic viability depend on the curation of Reagan myths and legends. 

Step 3.  If you look under the surface of the GOP, you'll find all these "good" Republicans, just waiting to be shown the light!

Longwell:  Like that's [the myth of Reagan] who we are.  And I still think there's a lot of that in there. And so we have to show them what they [the real villains] are doing.

Step 4.  Yes, there are real villains, and they need to be held accountable.  But they're all of relatively recent vintage, and they're not like all those "good" Republicans.

Longwell:  And the Stephen Miller of it all, the masked thugs of it all, like that. Exactly.  Let them keep putting that ghoul on Fox News. Like, that guy's not mainstream.

Then...repeat Step 3.

Longwell:  And so we have to show them [those] people. This is where you can start to turn Americans who even voted for Trump, but people of good conscience against what is happening here.

And there it is.  The Never Trump thesis right there on the table.  Endless digging and sifting and pawing through the Mount Everest of shit that is the Republican Party, cocksure that there are scads of "people of good conscience" in there somewhere who voted for Trump over... and over... and over again and yet somehow had no idea what they were doing or what was going on -- and still don't 

And all they need to be redeemed is The Bulwark to gently remove the scales from their eyes.  You know, like Paul on the road to Damascus!  Which is why you should subscribe, why you should Buy!Her!Book!, and why Democrats should focus lots of our limited time and energy and money on persuading these "good" Republicans to vote for us baby-killing, commie scum.

Hey, it's still a notionally free country, and you're free to buy her book if that's your thing.  But before you take anything she, or any other Never Trumper, says about Reagan or the history of the Republican Party during the Before Time at face value, may I suggest you read about it from actual historians who have done decades of painstaking original research, and not from the publisher/PR flack for a media corporation staffed with former Republicans. 

An actual historian like, say, Rick Perlstein.  

I realize that the notion of summarizing Rick's scholarship in a few paragraphs is ludicrous, but if I were to do so, I think it would be fair to say that Rick argues that Reagan was the genial, affable spokesman for a political machine that successfully turned cultural grievance into a governing philosophy. By fusing white backlash, conservative evangelical activism, free-market fundamentalism, anti-feminism, and sophisticated conservative organizing, Reagan helped create the modern Republican Party. His real legacy was making the conservative movement the dominant force in American politics for decades and normalizing ideas and tactics that eventually culminated in Trumpism.

One recurring theme across his four monumental histories of the modern Republican Party -- Before the Storm, Nixonland, The Invisible Bridge, and Reaganland -- is that Reagan didn't conjure these forces from scratch; he successfully united and legitimized them, and gave disparate right-wing anti-government factions a charismatic leader and a winning electoral strategy.

Trump didn't overthrow the Reagan Revolution. 

He completed it.

Burn The Lifeboats

Temu Reagan

Some days it's hard to understand what put the "Never" in "Never Trump".  Or, rather, why their slogan was not, is not, and never will be "Never Republican".  

Because Temu Reagan actually delivered on their dearest wishes.  And he did so by diligently pursuing the path to political success laid down by St. Ronald Reagan.

First, political strategy.

Pandering to bigots to win elections?  Check.  

From The Washington Post, June 19, 2020:

Ronald Reagan in Philadelphia, Miss., to Donald Trump in Tulsa, a pattern of racially divisive politics.

Welcome the Evangelical Right to the inner circle of Republican power brokers?  Check.

Also from The Washington Post, March 22, 2021:

Reagan tied Republicans to White Christians and now the party is trapped

Republicans have a passionate base that is out of touch with the rest of America.

...Reagan’s first-term record was a mixed bag, as far as cultural conservatives were concerned. Even so, four years into his presidency, Reagan saw an opportunity to use religion to forge a political realignment in the South. Addressing a crowd of 10,000 religious leaders at an “Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast” during the 1984 Republican Convention, the president delivered a rousing speech. Reagan willfully blurred the line between church and state. “Religion needs defenders against those who care only for the interests of the state. The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable — and as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related.” He concluded: “If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

Not surprisingly, the Republican platform that year reflected the agenda of White evangelicals. It called for a constitutional ban on abortion with no exceptions and the appointment of federal judges who opposed abortion. It supported voluntary school prayer, ignored the Equal Rights Amendment (which Republicans had supported in every platform from 1940 to 1976 with only two exceptions: 1964 and 1968) and rejected equal pay for women. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, closed the 1984 Republican convention by triumphantly calling the incumbent ticket “God’s instruments in rebuilding America.”

 

Second, tangible deliverables.

Gargantuan increase in military spending?  Check.

From AFSCME Defense Spending Resolution #1, June 18-22, 1984:

The Reagan Administration is seeking an unprecedented peacetime military buildup. The Reagan Administration’s Fiscal Year 1985 budget request for national defense spending is greater, even when adjusted for inflation, than defense spending in any other year since World War II, including the years of the Korean and Vietnam wars. If the Reagan Administration has its way, defense spending would climb an additional 25 percent, in inflation adjusted dollars, between 1985 and 1989. By 1989, Department of Defense spending would be 29% higher (after adjustment for inflation) than during the peak of Vietnam when 50,000 American troops were engaged in combat overseas...

From House.gov, June 24, 2026

Republicans Advance Largest Pentagon Budget in History while Cutting Billions from Domestic Investments

The $1,072,210,299,000 military budget is the most expensive ever, while the Trump administration requests even more funding

Massive tax cuts?  Check.

WTTW, February 25, 2020:

‘Arguing with Zombies’: Paul Krugman on Economic Ideas That Won’t Die

In his new book “Arguing With Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future,” Krugman calls a number of economic policies “zombie theories” because they have been proved false, refuse to die and keep coming back. 

Another example he cites is that “tax cuts pay for themselves.”

“We both tried tax cuts and tax increases and it’s never happened. The Reagan tax cut led to big deficits. George W. Bush’s tax cut led to big deficits. Trump’s tax cut led to big deficits,” Krugman said. “Bill Clinton raised taxes and, you know, Republicans predicted disaster. It goes on and on.” 

“This is a theory that has – nothing has been tested as often as this one. And yet, when the Trump tax that was passed just about every Republican in Congress said, ‘Oh, I’m sure this will pay for itself,’” he said.

So why does that theory persist? And did Republicans really believe it would pay for itself? 

Krugman has a blunt answer.

“With politicians, do they actually believe in anything?” he quipped. ”The answer is, look at the people whose taxes are cut. A lot of zombie ideas, not all of them, but a lot of zombie ideas are basically kept shambling along eating people’s brains by billionaires.”

Center for American Progress, November 20, 2025:

7 Ways the Big Beautiful Bill Cuts Taxes for the Rich

Overall, the Big Beautiful Bill will harm poor Americans and raise the incomes of rich Americans—driving gains for the rich through cuts to marginal tax rates and the estate tax, along with tax breaks for businesses, business owners, and investors

Over the next decade, the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) will cut taxes for the richest 10 percent of Americans by more than $14,700 per year per household and cut taxes for the richest 1 percent of Americans by more than $50,000 per year, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). Despite this, there has been comparatively little coverage of the specific mechanisms by which the BBB funnels money to the ultrarich. Meanwhile, tiny tax cuts for the working class have received disproportionate media attention, even as the BBB will reduce the incomes of the poorest Americans.

Overall, the BBB cuts taxes by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, primarily with $2.3 trillion of provisions that deliver most of their benefits to the richest 10 percent of Americans by income, according to new analysis of JCT data by the Center for American Progress. Within that, the BBB delivers $1 trillion in tax cuts to the top 1 percent while cutting more than $1.1 trillion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and other health programs used by the poorest Americans. 

Slashing the social safety net?  Check.

From The Washington Post, August 20, 1981:

Reagan Budget Means Drastic Cuts In Medicare and Medicaid Programs

Fifth of Nation Is Affected Reagan Budget Means Drastic Surgery for Medicare, Medicaid

The budget bill just signed by President Reagan will, as finally drawn, cut federal medical aid to more than a fifth of the American population.

NBC News, April 2, 2026:

Trump says it's 'not possible' for the U.S. to pay for Medicaid, Medicare and day care: 'We’re fighting wars'

Trump urged states to fund benefits programs instead because "we have to take care of one thing: military protection."

He went on to say that he told Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought: “Don’t send any money for day care, because the United States can’t take care of day care. That has to be up to a state. We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care. You got to let a state take care of day care, and they should pay for it too.”

Then add to the mix all the culture war bullshit -- the "Guns, God and Gays" bullshit -- that holds the coalition of Republican bigots and imbeciles together so the donor class can get what they're paying for.

Ronald Reagan was the first sitting U.S. president to actively champion overturning Roe v. Wade and making opposing the 1973 Supreme Court decision a core platform of the national Republican Party.

Ronald Reagan also accelerated the decades-long political and legal push to reshape the federal judiciary with conservative judges who opposed Roe v. Wade, helping create the conditions under which organizations like The Federalist Society would become enormously influential and raise up crop after crop of lawyers and judges who were Right Wing True Believers.

And Reagan -- along with two Conservative federal judges named Bork and Scalia -- gutted the Fairness Doctrine and unleashed a tidal wave of Conservative propaganda outlets that no longer had to worry about facts or fairness.

What Reagan delivered with a smile and hair dyed unnaturally brown, Trump delivers with a scowl and  hair dyed an the color of a Dreamsicle.   How can any fair-minded human look at the last 50 years of Republican politics and not see that Reagan was the overture and Trump is the finale of one, long, catastrophic Conservative revolution?

Or, to borrow a lightly edit quote from Holy Writ of the Oligarch Class.

You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins; it is the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection.

You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have wished it, and Donald Trump is the man who has granted you your wish.

Update:  For more on these exciting developments we join Charlie Pierce already in progress...

Wait, Did the Republican Party Only Just Realize That It Hired a Bunch of Yahoos and Morons, and That’s Why It’s Falling Apart?

I’ve seen this coming ever since Reagan opened the Gates of Mordor back in 1980.

I Am The Liberal Media

Today In Political Paleontology...

Nothing to see here.  Just a couple of Cold War relics scolding Democrats for trying to live up the legacy of FDR.

To lull themselves to sleep at night, they play this as soothing, white noise ASMR.

I Am The Liberal Media

One of These Things Is Not Like the Others

No, the difference is not the lies.  

All three of them were lying.  Reagan was lying after the fact.  Bush was lying before the invasion, laying the fraudulent predicate for it.  And Trump was lying in medias res, so to speak. 

But they're all liars.  Republican liars.

The difference is that Trump didn't have speechwriters like Landon Parvin (Reagan) and Michael Gerson (Bush) bending the language around to tailor those lies for general public consumption.

Burn The Lifeboats