WASHINGTON—A former Trump administration official laid out a comprehensive critique not only of the Left but of conventional conservatism, warning if the Republican Party failed to follow the president's lead, it might ultimately find itself ousted from power for good.
In a public forum in the nation's capital, former Trump Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications Michael Anton, now a lecturer and research fellow at Hillsdale College, told the story of his groundbreaking but intensely controversial essay, “The Flight 93 Election.”
According to Anton, “when Donald J. Trump announced that he was running for President, I didn't take it seriously.” It was the third time Trump had flirted with a presidential bid, and Anton did not believe the now-president would follow through.
“He kept saying, ‘I'm in it for real this time,'” Anton said, so ultimately he decided, “I'll try to take it seriously.”
As he did, he began to acknowledge Trump's platform made more sense to him than others in the field.
The conservative establishment didn't agree—but there was “something intellectually about modern conservatism that wasn't quite right,” Anton charged.
Conservatives once focused on policies advancing founding principles, but gradually began to see policies as ends in themselves. Take immigration, trade, and war, said Anton, on which over time, conservative think tanks had drifted into an “inflexible Chamber of Commerce position.”
Anton noted Republican pundits would repeatedly react with revulsion as Trump blasphemed. “He's finally done it now,” they would assert each time, Anton said, “He's toast.”
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