Nolte: Trump’s Wildly Successful First Year Again Exposes #NeverTrump as Amoral Saboteurs

Remember these names: Jonah Goldberg, David Frum, Bill Kristol, Rich Lowry, Max Boot, Mitt Romney, John Kasich, Joe Scarborough, Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, Jennifer Rubin, George Will, Josh Jordan, Tom Nichols, Charles Cooke, Stephen Hayes, Tim Miller, John Podhoretz, Nicole Wallace, Steven Schmidt, Bret Stephens, Ross Douthat, Leon Wolf, David Brooks, Rick Wilson, Evan McMullin, Stuart Stevens, Red State, National Review, the Weekly Standard…

These are the so-called conservative men, women, and institutions who (among others) fought the hardest to sabotage Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, all in the unforgivable hope that Hillary Clinton would become president.

These are so-called conservatives who have, for nearly two years now, been promoting themselves and fundraising by smearing Trump as incompetent and “not a real conservative,” as a “Democrat in sheep’s clothing” — when, in fact, all of that best describes #NeverTrump.

For everyone to copy, here’s the actual quotes from these NeverTrump morons:

Jonah Goldberg:
July 8, 2015: “Donald Trump has no chance of becoming president.”
July 11, 2015: “He’ll never be president...”
Ooops!
Oct. 23, 2015: “Most of the politically savvy people I know are still confident that Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee.”
Time to get some new friends, Jonah!
He wasn’t any better in 2016:
April 26th: “Trump will go down to a defeat of Biblical proportions in November.”
May 21 (after going on one of NR’s “cruises” and hobnobbing with the DC elite):
“I still won’t ever vote for Trump.”
He didn’t
Aug. 6th: “I am very skeptical that Trump’s candidacy can be saved.... Trumpism is a radiation leak threatening to destroy the GOP, not just in 2016 but for a generation.”
If I was that hopelessly wrong, that often, I’d be too embarrassed to ever write about politics again.

George Will, another bow-tie wearing member of the chess club:

Dec. 24, 2015 (in the Washington Post!): “Trump nomination would destroy the GOP”
April 30, 2016: “Donald Trump’s damage to the Republican Party.... has barely begun.” Will warned of “down-ballot carnage” that could end GOP control of the House.
The GOP is, as we know, at historic high levels of elected officials.
Sept. 21, 2016: Announced he refuses to vote for Trump or Clinton.
Nov. 1, 2016: “Republicans are better off losing in a landslide.”

Frank Luntz
The day after the first GOP presidential primary debate, Luntz went on CBS and told the nation that Trump’s performance “destroyed his chances” to be the GOP nominee. (8-7-2015)
November 8, 2016: “Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States.” (on election night (6:43 p.m. to be exact)!)
In 2012 he predicted a Romney win…..

Bill Kristol
“Maybe I’m wrong about this,” Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said on Morning Joe in December 2015, “but I have enough faith in the Republican primary electorate that they will select a talented politician over a talented demagogue.”
Dec. 26, 2015: “Donald Trump’s mystique would disappear with an Iowa loss… I don’t think he will be the nominee.”
May 29, 2016: “There will be an independent candidate—an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance.”
David French? Evan McMullin?
May 2, 2016: “I think he’d be a terrible nominee… Trump will lose the election.”
Trump secured the delegates necessary to clinch the nomination before the end of May, foreclosing the possibility of a last stand against him that summer. But that didn’t stop Bill Kristol from tweeting just weeks before the event, “Prediction: 2016 GOP MVP will be @Reince, who steps up, ensures open convention, saves party from Trump and produces ticket that wins in Nov.”
Oct. 20, 2016: Trump is “a failed, fluke presidential candidate… who should be ignored on election night.”

John Fund
June 17, 2015: “Donald Trump will milk every ounce of publicity he can from his boisterous entry into the 2016 presidential race—then drop out before he had to begin the grind of day-to-day campaigning.”
Trump isn’t serious about running? Is Fund serious when he writes such twaddle?
Dec. 13, 2015: “Losing Iowa could be Trump’s kryptonite.”
Nope
March 6, 2016: At the current rate, Trump might not get to 1,237 delegates.”
Ooops again.

Matthew Dowd, ABC’s in-house “Republican”
April 3, 2016: Trump “can’t win a general election”

“It’s time for the media to be honest: Detroit Lions have better chance of winning the super bowl this year than Trump has of being President”
7:20 AM - Oct 12, 2016
Nov. 1, 2016: “Any expenditure of time or money by Trump in Pennsylvania … is a total waste. Campaign mismanagement if they keep it up.”
Nov. 6, 2016: “I think she’s going to have a higher margin that Barack Obama did in 2012” Trump will lose “and lose badly.”

Nov. 7, 2016: Clinton will get “341 electoral votes.”

Jay Nordlinger of NR

July 26, 2015: “I don’t’ take Trump seriously as a political figure…. He’ll be gone ere long.”
Aug. 3, 2015: “I’m a big fan of Jeb Bush, always have been.”
June 7, 2016: Announces he’s leaving the Republican Party because “Trump is grossly unfit to be president.”
(who noticed? And he didn’t even bother to change his registration).
Oct. 8, 2016: “The Trump Right essentially forfeited the election to Hillary.”
(do these guys ever tire of being proven wrong?)

Michael Barone
In 2012 he predicted that Romney would win with 315 EVs.
Oops!
He was no better in 2016:
March 9, 2016: “a Trump nomination could be disastrous.”
March 23, 2016: Trump’s chances of winning are “preposterous.”

Matthew Continetti
Who is Bill Kristol’s son in law. Editor at the Washington Free Beacon, which paid Fusion GPS for anti-Trump research at the behest of its owner, a Rubio backer
June 4, 2016: “Republicans should be worried…. The question won’t be whether she’ll win. It will be by how much.”
June 18, 2016: “The GOP is self-destructing….Every week that Donald Trump remains the Republican nominee, the party comes closer to removing itself from the presidential gene pool.”
Continetti admitted he thought Romney would win in 2012.

Mike Murphy, the presiding genius of the Jeb! campaign, hasn’t lost his magic touch:
‘My big prediction: I think she’ll win FL quickly; will be clear in early numbers. Then cable news will do a huge 180 on “long night”.’
MM on Trump, during the GOP primaries:
He’s dead politically, he’ll never be president of the United States, ever.

Jim Geraghty of NR
12-22-15 Trump is “shocking”
8-1-16 Trump will lose
7-5-16 Trump is losing
8-17-16 Trump campaign “no longer effective”
9-3-15 Trump “self-delusional”
10-24-16 Trump “bad, disliked, dishonest, vindictive”
5-18-16 Trump’s “made an entire campaign out of lying…”

Byron York:
10-19-16: Trump winning is an “impossible task.” “This race is over.”
10-24-16; “The enthusiasm to vote [for Trump] appears to be going down.”
10-24-16: Texas, Georgia and Arizona are toss-up states [Trump won all three handily]
6-6-16: York quotes 5 anonymous “GOP strategists” [one of York’s favorite tactics] dissing Trump and Trump’s “self-destructive rambling”

Rich Lowry:
9-24-15 Says Carly Fiorina cut Trump’s “balls off” in the GOP debate
1-21-16 Trump “is a menace to American conservatism”
2-6-16 “Principled conservatives” like me oppose Trump
4-20-16 Trump is likely to fall short of 1237 delegates needed
8-25-16 Trump can’t be trusted on immigration

Mona Charen is the last one to lecture about politics, given her record of being laughably wrong on almost everything.
“Trump couldn’t help the Democrats more if he were trying. Wait, maybe he is...” (Dec. 8, 2015) Oops!
“Trump is overwhelmingly likely to lose to Hillary Clinton if he’s the Republican nominee” (March 21, 2016) Oops!
“If he won [the presidency], he could cause catastrophic damage to the country.” (March 21, 2016) Last time I looked, the economy is roaring and ISIS is being defeated.
“Trump is no conservative—he’s simply playing one in the primaries” (Jan. 22, 2016) Mona, it seems outside the Beltway conservatives disagree with you
“Trumps nomination represents the GOP’s “full-on suicide...[Trump] will destroy the party... RIP GOP.” (Aug. 5, 2016)
Mona refused to vote for Trump in the general election.
In the primaries? Consider this gem from Mona: “Rubio is the most articulate, thoughtful, inspiring and consistently conservative of any Republican running.” Republican and conservative voters who don’t live in Beltway mansions (like Charen does) disagreed.
“[Trump represents] the Republican Party’s suicidal decision to nominate and support a pathological narcissist / con man.” (Nov. 4, 2016) Some “suicide” four days later!

Jay Cost of NRO.
On March 24, 2016, Cost predicted that “if Donald Trump is the nominee, Hillary Clinton’s floor in the Electoral College is 400 votes.” FLOOR, not ceiling.
“kiss the senate goodbye” Oops!
“Only a 40% chance of the GOP retaining the House.” Oops!
“an abject disaster for the Republican Party in November” Oops!
“he’s going to get killed in Butler County [PA, Cost’s home]” Trump won Butler County in a landslide, and exceeded Romney’s 2012 margin in that county.
“It is going to be an absolute, total bloodbath for Republicans.” Oops!
On 6-8-16 Cost implored Mitt Romney, an “eminent statesman,” to run to save the party from Trump.
On July 27, 2016 Cost announced that he’s quitting the GOP. Nobody noticed.

Max Boot
Following Trump’s win in the Indiana primary, Boot wrote “The Republican Party is Dead.... Trump will lose by a landslide.” (LAT, May 8, 2016)
Can anyone have been more wrong?

Eliot A. Cohen (an adviser to Marco “Can’t win his home state” Rubio) wrote that the Trump nomination will produce “a national revulsion for the GOP candidate.” (May 4, 2016), and that by nominating Trump, the GOP would “lose its soul.”

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