It is sometimes necessary to restate the obvious. Donald Trump’s continued political career is an enormous waste of the political energy of the conservative movement, the Republican Party, and the American Right (as that is most broadly construed). Every day that it continues, we redirect our precious and finite resources away from doing things that matter to the lives of ordinary Americans and to the causes we believe in, and put those resources instead into things that are mainly of personal interest to Donald J. Trump.
Make no mistake: Political energy is finite. There are only so many people engaged in American politics, only so many of those who are at least occasionally on our side, and only so many of those who are genuinely active in advancing our causes and institutions on the right. Among politically active people, there are only so many hours in the day to devote to this stuff; among politically interested and engaged audiences, there is only so much time and attention to devote to it. Money is a finite resource. Airtime on TV, radio, YouTube, and podcasts is limited, if only by the energy of the people creating content and the interest of the people consuming it. So is print and Web space for the written word. Conservative organizations can hire only so many people; so can the Republican Party. Swing voters — people who might vote for Republicans or might vote for the Democrats or for a third party, or might stay home — consume only so much information in making their decisions. The same is true of young people in forming long-term political attachments.
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