Republicans who vote for Democrats because they don't like Trump or the deal he had to cut are like chickens voting for Col. Sanders

David Thorton:
Trump has left an indelible mark on the GOP and there is no going back.

Two weeks after Conor Lamb’s squeaker victory in PA-18, and President Trump's approval of the omnibus spending bill, some Trump critics and former Republicans who have left (or been forced out) of the GOP are celebrating as the Republican Party edges toward an electoral disaster.

Some conservatives want to help this disaster along by voting Democrat. The movement to encourage dissatisfied conservatives to vote Democrat in order to punish the Trumpian GOP is tempting, but it is a bandwagon that I cannot climb aboard.
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There are a couple of flaws with this line of thinking. First among them is the notion that Republicans want a conservative party. In 2016, there were plenty of conservatives to choose from and Republican voters settled on Donald Trump, a candidate who had the temerity to endorse the idea of universal government healthcare in a Republican debate. Even when it was down to only Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, the conservative did not win.

If Republicans rejected conservatives before, why should we expect that a post-Trump GOP would be any different? As a former president who is popular within the party if nowhere else, Donald Trump will be a party kingmaker. Does anyone really think he will quietly fade away like other past presidents? Not while Twitter and Fox News exist.
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A second problem is that I cannot vote for most Democrats any more than I could support President Trump. Many prominent conservatives voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. I could not. I viewed both candidates as so flawed (albeit in different ways) that I could not give either my vote and endorsement.

The 2018 midterms are similar to 2016 except that some of the Republican candidates will be real conservatives. I cannot vote against these people even as a possible means to save conservatism from an even greater defeat. As a matter of principle, I cannot give my vote to anti-gun, pro-abortion, pro-tax liberals.

If Democrats win majorities this year, then it is likely that President Trump will help advance their agenda on at least some issues. If the Parkland shooting had occurred under a Democrat Congress, is there any real doubt that Trump would sign a gun control bill that made it to his desk? How about a gas tax? More deficit spending increases? More restrictive trade policies? Amnesty without border security? A Democrat majority working with President Trump would be an unmitigated disaster for conservatives and the country as whole.
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Trump has his flaws but they are nothing like as bad as those of the Democrats.  There are many elections where I vote against Democrats more than for some Republicans.  That is the best chance of defeating the evils of liberalism.

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