‘Why do they bend their knee?’ 6 Never-Trumpers look back at what went wrong

Never-Trumpism didn’t die when the former president clinched the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday. But the idea that a Never-Trump Republican might beat Donald Trump has expired for now — and may not be resuscitated any time soon.

In the span of a week, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley dropped out of the primary. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who fought against Republican retrenchment from NATO, endorsed Trump. The day after McConnell’s announcement, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu — who campaigned for Haley and once called Trump “fucking crazy,” said he is supporting the former president. Sure, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, one of the movement’s last hopes, is running for a Senate seat, but a Republican-led rescue of the party of Ronald Reagan looks as far away as ever.

Dating back to Jan. 14, 2016, when Our Principles PAC, an anti-Trump super PAC that attacked the party’s future standard bearer, was founded, Republicans have been some of the former president’s most vociferous opponents. High profile Republicans posted under the hashtag #NeverTrump in early 2016 on what was then known as Twitter — but they ultimately kissed the ring.

The Never Trump movement is a big tent, to be sure. For years, Republicans held on to the belief that Trumpism could be beaten in a battle of ideas. The ideological keystone the movement held at its core was the idea of fighting — in truly small-c conservative fashion — to return the party to its pre-Trump dogma of internationalism abroad and a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats economic policy at home. Haley’s campaign was its last flagship, if imperfect, vessel.

Here, in their own words, influential Never Trump strategists and former GOP operatives answer what went wrong and grapple with where their faction lands in 2024 — and beyond.

Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Podcast and former adviser to Our Principles PAC

Haley's exit was kind of the end. It's been in hospice for a while. It’s the official end of the Bush, neocon, compassionate conservative-Republican Party, and there’s no going back to it. Even if Trump, God-willing, loses in a landslide, I think the party would move more towards some kind of hybrid model of a JD Vance or something like that.

Nikki Haley is not going to be the party’s nominee in 2028. Neither is somebody from that era, nor is anybody who reflects an internationalist perspective. The kind of perspective — of America should have a role in the world, that immigrants are welcome, economically conservative and socially conservative or moderate — those types of candidates are just … that's just not the party. Could somebody win on that platform in one random race? Sure, but it certainly is over as far as being a relevant part of the party.

The Never Trump thing will be around as long as Trump is around. That’s a coalition of convenience. It's been so long now, this feels kind of quaint, but that came originally when we all thought Hillary was gonna win. It was literally a marriage of convenience. It was like, “We all expect to be fighting again next year.” Like, she'll win. And then we'll go back to working for RINOs and the Amanda Carpenters and Jonah Goldbergs of the world will push for more conservative types.

Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and CEO of Longwell Partners

I certainly began my Never-Trump journey with the hope of saving the Republican Party and the belief that Trump was an aberration. But I watched after January 6, the way that voters slowly made excuses for Trump, where they were horrified by what happened — they walked it back. They either said it was Democrats who did it, or ultimately, well, it wasn't that bad.

I hear this from voters all the time in the focus groups, they say it clearly — they say, “I’m not going back. I don't want politicians like Nikki Haley. These people are RINOs.” When the Freedom Caucus says “Mitch McConnell, D-Ukraine,” that is a widely held sentiment in the party. I listen to these voters, and they don’t not like Mike Pence’s policies. They hate Mike Pence. They hate establishment Republicans. That’s why anybody who thinks that Nikki Haley, by being the last woman standing, becomes the putative front-runner in 2028, has completely missed what is going on with the party.

There have been stages in the Never Trump movement. “Never Trump” was really born out of people who were Republicans going into 2016 and already didn't support Trump. During some of Trump's actions in 2016, new Never Trumpers were born. Going into 2020, there was a new group of people who had been Republicans but who said “absolutely not” to Trump — “Never Again. I absolutely won’t vote for him again.” And then, after the January 6 assault on the Capitol, a new generation of Never Trumpers were born: Never Again Trumpers. So … a new Never Trumper is born every minute.

There’s a lot of talk about new parties in the circles that I move in. That's always been what’s interesting about the Never Trump movement: there are people for whom the Democratic Party is anathema. Maybe they'll vote for Democrats in the short term, but they don't consider themselves Democrats, and they want a third-party option.

This is why the No Labels threat actually is so dangerous to Joe Biden, because No Labels is never going to win a majority of the country, but it can peel off 10 percent to 15 percent of right-leaning independents and soft GOP voters who might otherwise vote for Biden given a binary choice between Trump and Biden. But like you give them an off ramp, and they're gonna take it because it's much closer to who they are.

Mike Madrid, political consultant; co-founder of The Lincoln Project

The Republican Party has not been the party of classical conservatism, of Reagan-Bush, for six or seven years now. But any doubt that remained was removed when Mitch McConnell bent the knee, and John Thune, his lieutenant likely to take over, had gone for Trump as well. It’s fully Trump's party — completely.

I don’t know who believed that Nikki Haley would bring back traditional Republicanism. If you believed that you weren't paying attention for the past eight years. There was never an ideological lane for Nikki Haley or anybody else to be a viable anti-Trump candidate. This is a nationalist-populist party that is not tethered to an ideology, certainly not conservatism. That’s clear now. The revolution is complete.

The Never Trump movement is finding our feet better than we have at any point since Trump came down the escalator. There’s a lot more of us. There's actually infrastructure. There's influence in the media both on the left and on the right. There are actual talks now about formalizing the organization. That's happening a lot more now. It used to be sort of guerrilla tactics.

Now, the question becomes: Do we want to be a faction? Or is there an attempt to kind of create a new party? I think that right now, the best thing to be doing is to demonstrate the power of the anti-Trump faction by defeating him. And then once that happens, you're going to see, I think, a ton of movement, because the Republican Party will essentially shatter. It's going to atomize once Trump loses.

There are going to be a bunch of people trying to be the next Trump. That will not work. It's a cult of personality. Then there will be a handful of people trying to reconstitute the pre-Trump ideology that the party had. And that's not going to be possible.

Mike Murphy, longtime GOP strategist

The only thing Never Trump Republicans kind of agree on is: not Trump. There's no manifesto. But it's more traditional conservatives, either national security conservatives, fiscal conservatives — because Trump spends like a drunken sailor. I would put the fissure more between Trump populism and traditional GOP conservatism.

There are plenty of traditional GOP conservatives who are kind of slumming with Trump, because they can't abide the Democrats. That’s like asking Yankee fans to root for the Red Sox. But there are some who consider Trump so abhorrent, and I'm one of them, that they're willing to even vote for Joe Biden. And I’m one of them. On the Reagan issue set, Biden is better than Trump.

I believe we're in a Trump populist moment now and it'll wear itself out. I think there will be a return to fiscal conservatism which was abandoned during the Trump era. I don't believe Trumpism is permanent by any means. But it is certainly the reality of the party right now.

Ben Howe, co-founder, Third Act Media and former contributing editor, Red State

At the time [in 2016], I was writing at Red State. And I know that some of my fellow writers were all using that phrase: I'll never vote for Trump. I think in January, I wrote an article and I said, "if Donald Trump is the nominee, I'm going to phonebank for Hillary."

At the time it was unfolding, it was just like, can we stop this nonsense? Obviously, he's not going to be the president. Obviously, he's not going to be the nominee.

When [Sen. Ted] Cruz dropped out, I got a lot of hate and attention because I tweeted, hashtag I'm with her. Now, that's not very controversial, but at the time it was heretical.

If the Democrats don't find a way to be more appealing to the people who have left the Republican Party, then we’re not going to migrate to them. While the Democrats would then potentially be able to hold on to power, they're going to slowly lose it over time as the homeless population gets larger, and starts to develop its own home.

Charlie Sykes, conservative commentator

It felt like the closing of the doom loop there: That any hope of a return to what Haley called normalcy was gone. I keep coming back to the difference between rallying around Trump in 2016, and 2020, and 2024. It’s not the same thing.

You think of all the things that have happened. You could rationalize 2016 by saying he would grow into the presidency. In 2020, he was the incumbent president, and there was a lot at stake. But in 2024, you're basically surrendering to someone who has been found liable for rape, facing 91 felony charges, who continues to be increasingly unhinged in threatening retribution. And yet Republicans are recapitulating the surrender of the last eight years as if nothing’s happened.

In 2015 and 2016, I was still very much a part of the conservative movement, and really expected that I would stay there. I found back then that if you did not get on board with Trumpism, you would get excommunicated. That’s an old story for me: jobs lost; friendships destroyed; once a while, I'll go through my phone and look at the contacts, and be like, “Oh My God.” I haven't spoken to that person in eight years. Why do people go along with this? Why do they bend their knee? Well, it's because if you break with Trumpism, that means now breaking with the party, but it also means really breaking with, for many people, their social network. It was easier for me to do because I think I'm an only child.

This week feels like a dark exclamation point on the complete capitulation of the Republican Party. Mitch McConnell came very, very close, I think, to voting to convict Donald Trump. And then Chris Sununu. He was clearly one of the most prominent anti-Trump voices to say, “Yeah, me too. I’m going to put the party ahead of the country.”

It is as if we're in this massive simulation: what if he crossed this red line? What if he actually didn't just talk about grabbing women by the pussy, what if he actually raped a woman? Is that too far? What if he actually tried to overthrow the government? What if he actually incited violence? And the Republican Party is in the process of just shrugging and saying, “Yeah, four more years. We want four more years of that.”