Washington Examiner
Former President Donald Trump has caused massive and lasting harm to the Republican Party and the conservative movement in ways not fully comprehended today.
And he has also caused the overturn of Roe v. Wade, possibly the greatest accomplishment by any Republican since Abraham Lincoln.
During the 2016 primaries, I was 100% certain that Trump was the worst possible Republican nominee. During the 2016 general election, I was undecided on whether a Trump presidency would be better than a Hillary Clinton presidency — which is why I cast a protest vote.
The harms I feared from a Trump presidency almost all came to fruition, and Trump caused many harms I never imagined.
Trump transformed the GOP from a mostly (if imperfectly) conservative party to a cult of personality wedded to conspiracy theories. A “RINO,” or a “Republican in name only,” used to be a Republican who supported tax hikes or abortion. Today, a RINO is a Republican who doesn’t believe Rudy Giuliani’s fever dreams about a stolen election.
Trump didn’t simply tarnish the GOP brand in certain circles — that’s a very temporary thing, and Republicans of all stripes had done plenty to tarnish the brand on their own. Trump habituated Republicans and conservatives into conspiracy-theorizing, into lib-owning as the highest undertaking, and into defending corruption and abuse of power.
Yet Trump brought about the end of Roe. That is something every prior Republican decidedly couldn’t do or refused to do.
The majority in Roe included five Republican appointees. The majority in 1992 upholding Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey included five Republican appointees. Pro-life voters were told endlessly to elect Republican presidents and senators in order to overturn Roe, and again and again, after Souters and O’Connors and Kennedys, this proved folly. Even George W. Bush, the closest thing to a religious Right president, didn’t give us two reliable votes against Roe.
It took, of all people, Trump to give us a majority more wedded to the Constitution than to abortion…
