Can the Never-Trump Coalition Last?

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George F. Will joined The Washington Post when Richard Nixon was president, and he’s been espousing the same cerebral brand of conservatism twice a week ever since. His record doesn’t leave much room for surprise. And yet, there Will was on September 16, encouraging South Carolina voters to elect not Darline Graham, the Donald Trump protégé and newly appointed Republican senator vying for a complete term, but Annie Andrews, a Democrat running on a platform that includes abortion rights, expanded health entitlements, and higher wages for workers.

Around the same time, Karl Rove—who’s been deeply enmeshed in Republican politics since he was a teenager in the 1960s—announced that this fall he would vote for a Democrat for only the second time in his life rather than support Bo French, the GOP nominee for Texas railroad commissioner, following racist remarks French made about South Asian students at the University of Texas. (Rove didn’t couch his remarks as a commentary on Trump, but the president correctly understood it as pushback on Trumpism, and attacked Rove.)

Each of these record-scratch moments is a distinctive product of the Trump era. The desire to resist the president continues to create some strange bedfellows, but the question is whether this alliance can survive the end of the Trump presidency—and, if not, what will become of its parts.

Over the past decade, disgust with Trump has led many Republicans and conservatives to disavow him or the GOP—some over policy (for example, Trump’s critique of free trade), others over character (say, the Access Hollywood video), and still others over some combination thereof. Some who opposed Trump in 2016 made their peace once he won the election. In January 2016, National Review gathered a range of conservative writers in an “Against Trump” package. Today, many of those writers have broken for Trump, and the magazine generally supports the president.

Others, however, have remained firm—those now known as “never-Trumpers.” Five years ago, my colleague David Frum quoted a common dismissal: “Never Trump is not a political party. It is a dinner party.” But, as Frum wrote, raw numbers understate never-Trumpers’ impact. The combination of disaffected Republican and independent voters and prominent anti-Trump pundits has helped establish an important political bloc. An anti-MAGA majority emerged in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections, improbably including both the democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the quintessential neoconservative Bill Kristol. The bloc splintered in 2024 but appears to be reconstituting itself ahead of the midterm elections.

The never-Trump group includes distinct factions. Although moderate Republicans are heavily represented in the exodus, some members, such as former Representative Liz Cheney, are very conservative. Some emphasize that they remain on the right. Jeff Flake, a former senator from Arizona, served as an ambassador in the Biden administration, but he recently told my colleague Adam Harris, “I’m still a registered Republican, and I’m hoping that the party returns to its previous kind of tenets of limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility, strong American leadership abroad.” Many have registered as independents, and others have become Democrats. As that party moves left, Never-Trumpers have become the party’s de facto moderate wing. Kristol now sometimes takes positions bolder than and to the left of Democratic Party leaders’, and has embraced “Woke Bill Kristol” memes.

As Trump slides toward lame-duck status, cleavages within the group and between it and traditional progressives are becoming more salient. Some stalwart anti-Trumpers and former Republicans have unsuccessfully run for office as Democrats. Geoff Duncan, a former GOP lieutenant governor of Georgia who spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, lost the Democratic primary for governor this year. The lawyer and writer George Conway finished fifth in a Manhattan U.S. House primary. Frequent appearances on MS NOW can make someone a hero to progressives, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into votes.

The prominence of avowedly left-wing candidates also puts pressure on the coalition. Former Republicans could make their peace with Joe Biden, but Democrats such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed are going to be tougher sells if you’re in favor of small government or a close alliance with Israel. Trump’s war with Iran has also created tensions, with some neocons including Kristol have backing the concept of attacking Iran even as they’ve criticized the way Trump is handling it.

Upheaval might be coming to political media too. Disaffected conservatives have created new publications, such as The Bulwark and The Contrarian, that cater to a spectrum of readers, from moderate Republicans to mainstream Democrats. Other defectors have prominent posts in liberal outlets: Nicolle Wallace, a former George W. Bush communications director, hosts a daily show on MS NOW, and David French is a New York Times columnist. What will become of these audiences when resisting Trump is no longer a unifying force? Some readers and viewers may stick around and even start to hear conservative ideas more sympathetically, but others who currently thrill at seeing former conservatives skewering Trump may find that they no longer have much politically in common with the pundits.

Although the establishment of the broad pro-democracy bloc that set aside other disagreements was a necessary response to a political crisis, its eventual dissolution will also probably be a sign of civic health. Although they agree on democratic norms, the anti-Trump factions have valid disagreements on a range of policies, which are hard to hash out under one tent. (Consider Democratic Party leaders’ struggles to maintain unity.) In a healthy country, politics isn’t organized entirely around one person. Such a situation leaves only two options: for and against. An even better system might allow for a range of small parties that could form and dissolve many overlapping, ad hoc coalitions around specific issues of agreement, but the current U.S. electoral structure makes more than two parties all but impossible. Perhaps the end of the Trump era will clear the way for reforms that will not only restore but also improve American democracy.

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