Mona Charen

Yes, but he was also the antithesis of what I regarded as conservative virtues.

So for example, he encouraged people to believe that he personally, through force of will, could change huge problems, solve huge problems that face us as a country.

I thought that was the antithesis of everything that conservatism believed.

It was Caesarism.

And then, of course, all of his various heresies, like his attacks on free trade and his racism, which, again, I thought was the fulfillment of every fever dream of the left that thought conservatives were all racists underneath, that if you scratched them, you'd find that they were really racist.

And here along comes Trump, who confirms this.

So I resented that as well.

Oh, boy.

That feels like a lifetime ago.

At the time, we still believed, I guess, naively, that National Review had the kind of authority within the

the movement, that we could speak ex cathedra and anathematize Donald Trump and that people would take that seriously.

And they would say, well, look at all these conservatives of longstanding who have stature within the movement.

And therefore, if they say he's not good, then that will be crippling for, I don't know if we quite thought it'd be crippling, but we did think we had influence and we didn't.

Yep, that's right.

Herman Cain.

Yeah, there were a bunch of them.

And Ben Carson, of course, also ran in 2016.

And I thought he was similar.

And I remember discussing this with other people in 2012, that it was a little dismaying to see what was happening in the primaries and saying, you know, the base...

has some, uh, some appetites here that a little, that are a little worrisome.