As a seasoned Republican politico, I remember being constantly stunned – stunned – at the horrible treatment President Trump received from the GOP establishment during his first term. They literally criticized everything he did.
Often I thought, ‘What are these fools doing? He’s pushing and passing the exact conservative policies you guys have always preached about!’ Tax cuts, taking a chainsaw to regulations, drill baby drill, taking on Democrat nonsense, adopting business-friendly policies, getting serious about border enforcement, pro-law enforcement, strong military, and so on.
Remember William Kristol and his ‘conservative’ magazine The Weekly Standard? It closed up shop midway through Trump’s first term. Kristol’s neoconservatism wilted badly to Trump’s MAGA populism, and he couldn’t stand that fact that no one wanted to take cruises with him anymore to ‘discuss real conservative policies.’ So now, during Trump 2.0, he says he’s a Democrat.