{"id":166963,"date":"2026-01-25T16:41:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T00:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=166963"},"modified":"2026-01-25T17:02:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:02:51","slug":"never-trump-the-principled-conservatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=166963","title":{"rendered":"Never Trump & The Principled Conservatives"},"content":{"rendered":"

ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory<\/a> would interpret Jonah Goldberg, William Kristol, and the \u201cprincipled constitutional conservative\u201d Never-Trump cohort not primarily as defenders of abstract norms, but as members of a collapsing alliance network who chose to remain loyal to an old coalition even after its mass base defected.<\/p>\n

Their original alliance position.<\/p>\n

They were central nodes in the post-Reagan conservative super-alliance:<\/p>\n

Neocon foreign policy elites
\nFree-market globalists
\nConstitutional originalists
\nCold War national security institutions
\nDonor class Republicans
\nPrestige media and think-tank world<\/p>\n

Their shared rivals were:<\/p>\n

The Soviet bloc
\nThird World authoritarianism
\nDomestic New Left radicalism
\nLater, Islamism and rogue states<\/p>\n

This coalition was hierarchical, elite-driven, and institutionally embedded. Its moral language was constitutionalism, democracy promotion, free markets, and rule-based order. Goldberg and Kristol were not just thinkers. They were alliance legitimizers. Their job was to provide the moral and intellectual grammar that made this elite coalition feel righteous and coherent.<\/p>\n

The rupture.<\/p>\n

Trump did not merely change policies. He redefined the rival map.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, the primary enemies became:<\/p>\n

The permanent bureaucracy
\nIntelligence agencies
\nGlobal trade institutions
\nCorporate media
\nUniversities
\nTransnational NGOs
\nThe old Republican donor class<\/p>\n

In Alliance Theory terms, the mass base reclassified many of the Never-Trump conservatives\u2019 core institutional allies as out-groups.<\/p>\n

That created a transitivity crisis.
\nGoldberg and Kristol faced a choice:<\/p>\n

Reassign allies and update moral language accordingly, or
\nRemain loyal to their existing alliance and reinterpret the populist base as the new out-group.<\/p>\n

They chose the second.<\/p>\n

Why their \u201cprinciple\u201d language intensified.<\/p>\n

Alliance Theory predicts that when an alliance loses dominance, its moral vocabulary becomes more abstract, legalistic, and universalist. That is a classic coalition defense move. When you cannot win on numbers or emotional loyalty, you elevate procedural norms and legitimacy rules. You turn \u201cour side\u201d into \u201cthe Constitution,\u201d \u201cliberal democracy,\u201d \u201cthe Founders,\u201d \u201cnorms,\u201d \u201cthe rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not fake. It is functional.<\/p>\n

They were not lying about caring about the Constitution.
\nThey were using constitutionalism as a coalition-preserving signal.<\/p>\n

Who they were really defending.<\/p>\n

They were defending:<\/p>\n

The foreign-policy establishment
\nThe intelligence community
\nThe judiciary
\nThe prestige press
\nThe donor class
\nThe Atlanticist world order
\nThe post-Cold War elite settlement<\/p>\n

These institutions were their allies for decades. Trump and MAGA directly attacked them. Alliance Theory says loyalty to long-standing allies is cognitively and morally prior to ideological consistency.<\/p>\n

So they reframed the conflict:<\/p>\n

Not elite vs populist
\nBut constitutionalism vs authoritarianism
\nNot institutional decay
\nBut \u201cnorm erosion\u201d
\nNot alliance shift
\nBut \u201cmoral emergency\u201d<\/p>\n

Why they aligned with liberals.<\/p>\n

Once their old coalition lost its mass base, transitivity logic kicked in.
\nTheir enemies\u2019 enemies became their friends.<\/p>\n

Progressive elites, media, security agencies, and globalist Democrats now shared a rival: Trump and the populist right. So Never-Trump conservatives found themselves in a new bridging alliance, even while insisting they had not \u201cchanged sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alliance Theory predicts this exact rhetoric.
\nWhen alliances shift, actors insist values stayed constant and only \u201cone side went crazy.\u201d
\nThat is how coalition realignment is experienced subjectively.<\/p>\n

Their future.<\/p>\n

Alliance Theory would say their long-term role is not to lead a mass coalition again. Their natural habitat is:<\/p>\n

Elite magazines
\nThink tanks
\nUniversity centers
\nBipartisan democracy-defense NGOs
\nTransatlantic policy networks<\/p>\n

They will remain morally confident and culturally influential within elite institutions, but structurally disconnected from a mass right-wing base that no longer shares their rival map.<\/p>\n

In short:<\/p>\n

They are not traitors.
\nThey are not heroes.
\nThey are loyalists to a fallen alliance order who chose institutional continuity over populist transitivity.<\/p>\n

Their \u201cprinciples\u201d are real.
\nTheir alliance commitments are deeper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory would interpret Jonah Goldberg, William Kristol, and the \u201cprincipled constitutional conservative\u201d Never-Trump cohort not primarily as defenders of abstract norms, but as members of a collapsing alliance network who chose to remain loyal to an old … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t