Free Republic

As Ronald Reagan might say — there they go again. The “they” this time around is the Never Trump chorus insisting that not only can’t former President Donald Trump win the 2024 election, but he shouldn’t even be trying. Whether it’s Bush-cheerleader Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal, or, in the same place, Ruth R. Wisse, a professor emerita at Harvard University, or the esteemed Andrew C. McCarthy over at National Review, or more scattered over the political landscape, the Trump naysayers are out in force, predicting, of course, that the former president’s reelection bid is dead in the...

The members of the #NeverTrump movement cite, in part, Donald Trump’s position on trade as a reason why they cannot support their party’s presumptive nominee, chosen by Republican voters. They argue that Trump’s position on trade represents a betrayal of the Ronald Reagan legacy that defines virtually all thinking and rhetoric among the professional conservative class in Washington, D.C. However, there is one significant problem with this line of attack: namely, Reagan’s record on trade far more closely resembles Trump’s position than it resembles the view of those in the #NeverTrump movement. In fact, by their own definition, Reagan would...