Never Trump Tom Nichols is Wrong on Conservatism

In the latest edition of his Atlantic newsletter, “Confessions of a Conservative Apostate,” Tom Nichols queries: “What does it mean to be a conservative in the Trump era?” Nichols, like a number of former Never Trump Republicans, denounces his erstwhile partisan companions as “a bunch of kooks, opportunists, racists, and aspiring fascists.” But — again, like many of the ex-Republicans in his milieu — he maintains that his new partisan affiliation “in a coalition with an array of groups to our left” is the true conservative choice, given that “none of the issues that would normally matter between right and left matter as much as the future of democracy. A conservative who cares about the future of the constitutional order must face the reality that the Republican Party has become a menace to the Constitution and our system of government.”

This is not an especially new or original line — figures such as Nichols have been making some version of the “I didn’t leave my party, my party left me” argument since they first parted ways with the GOP. But Nichols’s most recent attempt to justify his new partisan affiliation is particularly telling for a number of reasons. Above all else, it helps illuminate deficiencies in the understanding of conservatism that led a number of former conservative personalities to abandon their commitment to their former political principles in favor of an all-out jihad against the GOP over the course of the past six years.

About the Author

Nate Hochman

Nate Hochman was a staff writer at National Review.

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In the latest edition of his Atlantic newsletter, “Confessions of a Conservative Apostate,” Tom Nichols queries: “What does it mean to be a conservative in the Trump era?” Nichols, like a number of former Never Trump Republicans, denounces his erstwhile partisan companions as “a bunch of kooks, opportunists, racists, and aspiring fascists.” But — again, like many of the ex-Republicans in his milieu — he maintains that his new partisan affiliation “in a coalition with an array of groups to our left” is the true conservative choice, given that “none of the issues that would normally matter between right and left matter as much as the future of democracy. A conservative who cares about the future of the constitutional order must face the reality that the Republican Party has become a menace to the Constitution and our system of government.”

This is not an especially new or original line — figures such as Nichols have been making some version of the “I didn’t leave my party, my party left me” argument since they first parted ways with the GOP. But Nichols’s most recent attempt to justify his new partisan affiliation is particularly telling for a number of reasons. Above all else, it helps illuminate deficiencies in the understanding of conservatism that led a number of former conservative personalities to abandon their commitment to their former political principles in favor of an all-out jihad against the GOP over the course of the past six years.