Scanning across this morning's offerings at RealClearPolitics I see an article by Bill Kristol vainly pushing his idea of a third-party challenge to Trump-Clinton. Another defends (in a backhanded way) Bill Kristol as not a "renegade Jew" but merely a sore loser.
This set me thinking about the future of the conservative establishment, as represented by two magazines: National Review and Kristol's Weekly Standard. Both are magazines I have read and cited over the near-decade COTTonLINE has been online. Both magazines have been a part of the recent #NeverTrump movement, bitterly so.
There has been a strong neocon presence in both - a commitment to a muscular, forward-leaning foreign policy Trump seems not to share. This element has favored a military defense of Israel, although it clearly stands for more than that.
If Trump loses in November, they'll write "I told you so" and continue on their present course. That much is a given.
The fascinating question is what they'll do if Trump wins? Will they mumble an apology and fall in line or become de facto allies of the Democrats? Is a change of heart even possible (or believable) after declaring Trump anathema?
If Trump wins, which appears likely at this juncture, I think these two icons of conservative thought may simply wither away, follow the many other magazines of opinion into the dusty archives of history. Like the Literary Digest, victims of the unforgivable sin of blatantly and unambiguously misreading the public will.
