Why would a Republican dislike Trump?

The first article in this month’s Atlantic is about “never-Trumpers.” I just don’t get it. Whatever you think about the man, from this liberal’s perspective, he has had unprecedented success in furthering various parts of the “conservative” agenda. Remaking the judiciary, attacking the permanent bureaucracy, rolling back regulations, tax cuts for the wealthy/industries, reducing international ties, attacking individual “entitlements”, … The list goes on and on.

What conservative plank has NOT been advanced under him?

I’m trying to think of a liberal whom I do not respect, or whom I think is a revolting human being. While I might prefer to have a literate, intelligent president representing my preferences, I’d LOVE liberal results of the sort conservatives have experienced under Trump, even if they occurred under a boorish idiot.

Theoretically, some republicans have ethics, morals, principles and values. Any republican president can advance conservative goals; there is no need for a human blister to do it. Don’t forget that Harvey Weinstein is a liberal. Would you be happy supporting him as your president?

Some Republicans also don’t like his trade policies. And probably his incompetence, and his absolute lack of any principles.

I can’t think of any democrat who is as disgusting as Trump, but if one came out from under a rock one day, I wouldn’t vote for that person even if they did great things.

(conversely, I couldn’t support Trump even if he balanced the budget, brought about world peace, ended hunger and fixed the climate crisis.)

He’s damaging the brand.

“Everything Trump Touches Dies” is funny book by a republican political operative who’s been a never-Trumper since the beginning that lays it out OK.

I could. To me, Trump’s biggest flaw is his incompetence. I could put aside his personal failings as a human being and even his corruption if he was doing a good job as a leader.

For some reason many on this board have no problem seeing the different factions of the left but think the right is some monolith of thought. They aren’t.

The far right libertarian/anarchists hate everything he’s done with the quarantine. They think it’s all unconstitutional and government overreach.

The hardcore gun people hate his support of a bump stock ban and support of red flag laws. They think it unconstitutional and government overreach.

Some military minded don’t like how he treated Mattis and McMasters.

The centrists shake their head at his Twitter stupidity and 1000 stupid things he’s said.

That’s just a few things off the top of my head. I’m sure I can come up with more.

Is it enough to make them vote Biden? Maybe some closer to the middle. Will it make some of them stay home? Maybe. I’m sure in the eyes of most Biden is worse but not all republicans or nominal republican voters are in love with Trump.

Will the vast majority of them vote for him anyway? You can bet your sweet bippy they will.
A difference isn’t really a difference if it is ignored in the end.

For example, Mitt Romney. I dont like his politics, but he has ethics.

There are quite a few more.

P.J. O’Rourke is a dedicated republican but he said: “I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises,” O’Rourke continued. “It’s the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she’s way behind in second place. She’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters.”

This. Trump is a moron that fell ass first into a position that he didn’t even really want. He now runs on his racist con-man policies that will end up hurting most in the end.

He is now just trying to enrich himself and stay our of prison. Which has been his business plan for his entire life.

Why wouldn’t a Republicans like Trump? There is no true republican that likes Trump. The question is moot.

As a Never-Trump conservative (I voted McCain in 2008, Romney in 2012, McMullin in 2016):

  1. He damages the brand, as** Little Nemo **said.
  2. The guy is a pathological liar, narcissistic, incompetent, bloviating braggart.
  3. He has absolutely no qualms about ditching US allies such as NATO or the Kurds if it suits him.
  4. He loves dictators like Xi, Kim, Putin, etc.
  5. He seems to imagine that reality needs to conform to him, instead of him conforming to reality.
  6. He has terrifyingly little understanding of how the world really works.
  7. He either has a bad plan for doing most things, or, a “plan” that changes every 15 minutes. Almost never a good, in-time, thought-out plan of action.
  8. He tweets dozens of times per day. (I’m not opposed to Twitter, as long as they are mature, calmly written tweets, and 1-2x per day)
  9. Everything good is credited to him; everything bad is someone else’s. He never accepts fault, blame or responsibility.
  10. He ran up massive deficits, even before the coronavirus.
  11. He promises all sorts of things and rarely delivers.
  12. He simply does not "get it."

Sure, I’d love a saint representing my interests, but moreso, I’d want someone who is effective. I doubt I’d be “happy” w/ a Weinstein president, but if the liberal results were the equivalent of what happened under Trump, I’d be happy w/ that!

Perhaps Trump’s cluelessness and classlessness has largely contributed to the success of a conservative agenda. He’s not interested in following precedent, cooperating, reaching consensus. Instead, he sees those as undesirable. As a result, he allows the most strident to form policy.

It is all fine for someone on either side to claim themselves a moderate. But I suspect many of those moderates would be happier under policies reflecting THEIR extremes, than the other side’s moderates.

Sure, liberals and conservatives differ. But you can label certain policies as liberal or conservative. And if you don’t support enough of them, you really don’t warrant the label. Say there are 5 primary left or right positions. Sure, not everyone on the L or R agree on all 5 - but a majority of them agree as to some aspect of several of them. So if I disagree w/ something Trump has accomplished on 1 of the 5, I can take comfort in the progress he has made on the other 3 or 4.

I’m likely gonna prefer the results from asshole/clown who makes progress towards some/most of my interests, as opposed to an ineffective more reputable person.

Of course, this presupposes the poisonous current extreme partisanship. But the last 4 years have swung things VERY far to the right. I don’t see how I can advocate for the left to unilaterally move to the center. Yeah, IMO there are MANY Rs who - despite their claimed dislike for the clown, are at risk of getting tired of so much winning.

Dinsdale, What interests of yours does Trump support? And what has he done to support those interests.

IANA a Republican, or a conservative, but I really don’t think any of what follows is “concern trolling”.

What are the professed core values of Republicans and/or American conservatives?

Patriotism and a strong national defense. Trump has undermined our most important alliances, especially NATO (something seen as pillar of American national security by people in both parties, and a major vehicle for American world leadership). He’s also said things about the U.S.A. that would get a liberal or Democrat crucified–on being told that Putin is a killer, Trump replied “You think our country is so innocent?”, a remark that American conservatives would surely be up in arms about under other circumstances ("There they go again, with their ‘Blame America First!’ and their “moral equivalence”!).

Free market economics. Trump openly embraces protectionism. He has also made a number of statements indicating he thinks the President has some power to order private companies to create new jobs (…or else). There is also the lurking issue that Trump has by all accounts been a lousy capitalist, what with the multiple bankruptcies and all, and has also completely failed to adhere to the basic standards of ethical business conduct that any rational supporter of capitalism would say are necessary to keep a free enterprise economy running–stuff like paying contractors what you owe them and things like that.

Deficit spending. (Kind of a sub-head under “free market economics”.) Do I even need to elaborate on this one? Granted, we’ve known the American Right were big old hypocrites about deficit spending since at least the days of Dick “Deficits Don’t Matter” Cheney–or even St. Ronnie himself–but still, “Holy fuck, you guys!”. (And I’m not even talking about the COVID-19 deficit spending, here.)

Family values/Traditional religious morality. Trump is thrice-married, paid off a porn star to cover up an affair, has bragged about “grabbing women by the pussy” and about walking in on half-naked underage beauty pageant contestants, has a reputation for being a foul-mouthed braggart that goes back decades, made his fortune running gambling casinos, and is in general a crude, worldly man with no evident knowledge of the Bible (“Two Corinthians”) or of Christian (and especially Evangelical Christian) ethics–Trump has publicly said that he doesn’t think he needs to ask God for forgiveness because doesn’t think he’s done anything he needs to be forgiven for.
Secondarily, we have issues of “states’ rights” and “the Imperial Presidency”. The truth is, those are issues that make hypocrites out of a lot of people; Democrats were quick to attack the overweening power of the Presidency when George W. Bush was in office; then turned to attacking the “obstructionist Congress” for much of Obama’s Presidency (and vice versa for the Republicans, of course). Democrats often favor “states’ rights” when it comes to marijuana legalization, but not so much when it comes to abortion. Progressives had a period of defending states’ rights on same-sex marriage between its first legalization in Massachusetts and the Obergefell decision, but certainly not after Obergefell.

Still, Trump has been especially blatant in his attacks (or at least rhetorical attacks) on the separation of powers within the federal government, and between the federal and state governments. And his rhetoric about Presidential power in general would certainly scare the daylights out of pretty much all of the Founding Fathers.
Now, it is certainly true that a large number of Republicans either never really held those values, and only wanted “tax cuts for the rich!” and/or “POWER! UNLIMITED POWER!!!”; or to be somewhat more charitable about it, are willing to sell out large swathes of their professed core values for tax cuts for the rich and favorable judicial appointments.

But it’s hardly shocking that members of a group of people who profess to believe in patriotism and a strong national defense, free market economics, and traditional moral values (not to mention “limited government” and respect for the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution) would be dismayed by Trump. Simply saying “Well, gosh, he’s a little brash, but isn’t he doing what they wanted all along?” really fails to capture the breathtaking hypocrisy of a huge part of the Republican Party and the modern American conservative movement on so many, many issues.

The surprising thing isn’t the existence of “Never-Trumper” Republicans, the surprising (and dismaying) thing is that there aren’t more of them.

At one point, not so long ago, Republicans supported free trade, and opposed tariffs. NAFTA was proposed by Reagan and negotiated by Bush.

Likewise, international ties were at one point promoted by Republicans. Nixon went to China, Reagan signed treaties with the USSR, Bush made sure he had a large coalition before invading Iraq (first Bush).

Immigration wasn’t as big a deal for Republicans either. Reagan signed an amnesty bill, and used executive power to legalize underage aliens who had not been covered by the bill.

All of your post was very well said. I’m am centrist, but have been pushed farther to the left by the blatant in your face to hell with you hypocrisy of those that call themselves republicans.

They are now supporting a President that is an obvious crook and moron. Those two facts could not be clearer. The only thing that one has to wonder is how can a moron get away with being a crook for so long and stay out of prison. And the answer is his daddy’s money has kept him ‘afloat’ and given him the ability to bribe and bully his way out of problems. His entire business plan is to get in, bully, try to make a profit and get out. That’s it.

And he’s doing it to the entire United States of America.

My understanding is most Obama voters who switched to Trump scored high in authoritarianism and bigotry (say what you will about bigoted people voting for Obama), while most Romney voters who voted for Trump scored low in authoritarianism and bigotry.

combine that with Trumps incompetence, his damage to the GOP brand, his attacks on free trade and I’m sure that plays a role too.

Either way, Trump got about 2-3 million more votes than Romney did in 2012, so it was a small number of republicans who defected.

Not a one. Why?

Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 with fewer votes (2700) than Romney got when he lost Wisconsin in 2012. The problem was Hillary got 240,000 fewer votes than Obama. That allowed Trump to get a small margin of victory in a crucial state.

I guess I misunderstood what you said here -