The Never Trump Thing, Man
These guys keep talking about persuasion like it's some kinda bowling league you can just show up to. Hate to break it, man, but the lanes are closed.
This is part three of a four part series. Here is part one, and part two to catch you up
So I’m sitting here — bathrobe, White Russian, y’know, just abiding — and I keep seeing these Never Trump podcasts pop up. And look, I got nothing against the guys. Some of them seem like they mean well. But man, I’m watching them, and I’m thinking... who the hell are they talking to?
Because from where I’m sitting, on this very comfortable couch — which, by the way, really ties the room together — the sorting is done, man. It’s over. Like, the rug got pissed on years ago. You can’t un-piss the rug.
Here’s what happened, and I think you’re gonna find this pretty straightforward. Between 2016 and 2024, Republican voters went through this long, brutal thing — every Trump shitshow was a kind of decision point. Access Hollywood. Helsinki. January 6th. The indictments. The conviction, man. Seventy-seven million votes anyway, in 2024. More than before, actually. And at every single one of those moments, the Never Trumpers were out there going, surely this is the thing that breaks it. And each time, the base just... absorbed it. Rationalized it. Came out the other side more committed. The people who couldn’t hang with that left. The rest stayed and built themselves elaborate little internal justifications, man. Really load-bearing stuff.
What you’re left with — and this is not a complicated point — is a Republican Party where the remaining members have by definition already decided that whatever Trump is, it’s fine with them. The 15 to 19 percent of Republicans who view Trump unfavorably right now? They’re not sitting at home waiting for the next Bulwark podcast to drop like it’s a new Creedence album. They’ve already processed the information. They just haven’t left yet.
The Three Moves That Aren’t Working, Man
These guys essentially got three moves. And all three are, like... not great.
Move one: appeal to the remainers. This is the core of the whole project — go out there, make the character case, the constitutional case, the democratic norms case, hope somebody peels off. The problem, man — and I say this with love — is that you are not going to out-argue someone who has spent three years building a custom internal justification for why a guy with 34 felony convictions is actually fine. You’re showing up to their bowling alley. They know every lane, every dead spot on the approach. You’re rolling a 7-10 split every time and acting surprised.
Move two: push the Democratic Party rightward. Okay, I’ll give ‘em this one — at least it’s strategically coherent, y’know? The idea being, if Democrats moved toward some kinda pre-2016 Republican orthodoxy, they’d attract the educated suburban conservatives who already bailed on the GOP. Some of these guys — Goldberg, others — have been pretty explicit about wanting exactly this. The problem is it requires the Democratic Party to reorganize itself around the preferences of a few million people who already left, which is... not a compelling pitch to the base voters who actually run the primaries. It’s like telling the bowling league they should change the rules to attract guys who stopped showing up. The guys there have other opinions, man.
Move three: moar self-congratulation. Okay, this is where I get a little exercised, man. This isn’t even really a strategy, it’s just a habit. A significant chunk of Never Trump content is basically a victory lap — we were right from the beginning, here are the receipts, here’s the contrast with the people who were wrong. And look, maybe you were right! Fine! But telling someone “I told you so” as their first introduction to your argument is — and I want to be precise here — a real dickish move, man. It turns the whole operation into a club that’s proud of itself rather than a coalition that wants to grow. Nobody who’s just now getting uncomfortable about tariffs and whatever the hell is happening with Iran wants to walk into a room full of people going, oh, finally figured it out, huh? That’s not how you get new members. That’s how you lose ‘em before they even sign up.
The No-Man’s Land, Man
Here’s what’s actually interesting, and I don’t think these guys talk about it enough, possibly because they’re too busy recording podcast intros about how correct they’ve been.
Pew data — and I’m not, like, a huge Pew guy, but this is real — shows genuine erosion in Republican confidence in Trump through late 2025 and into 2026. So movement is happening. But erosion in approval is not the same thing as somebody becoming a Never Trumper. Most of those soft disapprovers don’t see the Democratic Party as a viable alternative. They’re pissed off — quietly, privately pissed off — but they’re not crossing over. They’re in no-man’s land.
And that no-man’s land is the most interesting persuasion target available. But the Never Trump brand is working against them here, man, because Never Trump implies a destination. You either stay Republican and resist, or you leave the party. And neither of those options is appealing to someone who’s just quietly having a bad time with tariffs and doesn’t wanna vote for a Democrat. That person is just... standing in the alley, holding the ball, not sure where to throw it.
You wanna reach that person? Don’t show up in a bathrobe going “dude, your party sucks.“ Even if it does. Especially if it does.
What Would Actually Work
Look, I’ll be honest with you the way a good friend is honest with you — the way Donny would’ve been honest, God rest him — electoral persuasion at the margins right now is less important than building institutions and arguments for what comes after. Trump turns 80 in June. The coalition he built is genuinely fragile — nearly a third of his 2024 voters were “new entrant Republicans” whose loyalty to the party is substantially weaker than the core base. The post-Trump Republican Party is going to be a real fight, and that’s where Never Trump could actually matter.
But to matter in that fight, you need credibility with people who don’t already agree with you. And right now, man, this whole operation is breathing its own exhaust. Sealed up tight like a submarine. Very pleased with the air in there.
Getting out of that requires something that is, at present, in genuinely short supply in this corner of political media.
It requires accountability.
Which, I understand, is a whole other thing. And I’m gonna need another White Russian before we get into it.
The Dude abides.