They have fought him for three years, establishment conservatives dubbed Never
Trumpers who view President Trump with disdain and disgust.
One of their leaders, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP
presidential nominee, once spoke more harshly of Trump than the president’s former
lawyer Michael Cohen did at the explosive congressional hearing.
But in a new book that pulls no punches on Trump, the wilting Never Trump movement is declared dead, marginalized by GOP supporters who see the president as needed medicine “to deal with lethal tumors of the status quo.”
What’s more, in " The Case for Trump," out March 5, author Victor
Davis Hanson concluded that Trump has united the Republican Party like
few before him and is in better shape going into the 2020 re-election
campaign than were recent presidents including Barack Obama.
“In counter intuitive fashion, the provocative and often
off-putting Trump proved to be a far more effective uniter of his party than
had any prior elected populist maverick,” wrote Hanson, a senior fellow at
Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
" The Case for Trump," published by Basic Books, is one of the first attempts to shoot between
the Trump-hate and Trump-love books. Hanson wrote that he hasn’t even met
Trump.
Maybe for that reason Trump has already tweeted
encouragement for it, making the 391-page book an Amazon presale best-seller.
A key feature is an analysis of the Never Trump movement.
Hanson calls it an equal to the liberal “Resistance,” and said both have fallen
flat as Trump has kept his GOP support at 80 percent by boosting the economy,
making good on trade and foreign policy promises, and attacking the “swamp.”
He wrote, “Like the Resistance, the Never
Trumpers failed in all their political aims at removing or delegitimizing
Donald Trump.”
Hanson described the Never Trumpers as “orphaned from the
Republican Party, wrong about the Trump nomination and election, mistaken that
Trump’s record would be insubstantial or liberal, and convinced that the more
invective would bolster their predictions.”
The book heralded many of Trump’s actions, like the
“economic miracle” that has created millions of jobs and a tough America-first
foreign policy, as reasons the president has kept his coalition strong despite
his sometimes offensive traits.
“True, most of the country continues to see Trump as
near-toxic chemotherapy, but half the nation also felt that such strong
medicine was still necessary to deal with the lethal tumors of the status quo,”
he wrote.
And he concluded that it’s working for Trump, putting him
a good position for reelection despite a “90 percent” anti-Trump media.
Hanson cited the 2018 election results, where the GOP
lost control of the House but added to the Senate majority, for perspective on
the reelection campaign.
“By historical standards, Trump’s wins and losses meant
that he had performed better in his first midterm election than had Bill
Clinton and Barack Obama. Both former presidents had gone on to win handily
their reelections,” he wrote.
