Never Trump: The Revolt of the Conservative Elites

As it became increasingly apparent that Donald Trump might actually become the Republican party's 2016 presidential nominee, alarmed conservatives coalesced behind a simple, uncompromising slogan: Never Trump. Although the movement initially included a large number of Republicanoffice-holders, its white-hot core was always comprised of the policy experts, public intellectuals, and campaign professionals who play a critical role in the modern political party system. They saw in Trump a repudiation of longstanding conservative doctrine and, in his unprincipled appeals tovoters, the kind of demagogue the founders famously warned about. Never Trumpers took their shot at denying Trump the presidency - everything from flailing attempts to coalesce around other Republican candidates and collective letters of opposition, to a desperate third party challenge and evensupporting their longtime nemesis Hillary Clinton. But in their attempt to kill the king, they missed. Now on the margins of a party that has enthusiastically united around the president, Never Trumpers have been reduced to the status of a remnant, shut out from government and hoping for a day whentheir party awakens from its Trumpist spell.Based on extensive interviews with conservative opponents of the president, Robert P. Saldin and Steven M. Teles reveal why such a wide range of committed partisans chose to break with their longtime comrades in arms. Never Trump provides a window into the motivations of these conservativeprofessionals and a guide to the long-term consequences that their unprecedented revolt holds for the Republican and Democratic parties, conservatism, and American democracy.