Thread by @asymmetricinfo

I have had many interesting exchanges following last week's column.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/dear-…

One thing that's become very clear to me: how the left understood the #NeverTrump project is very different from how the #NeverTrump folks understood it.

Even among #NeverTrump there was, of course a division: one camp thought it meant actually supporting Clinton, another that it simply meant refraining from voting for Trump. (I was in the former camp, FYI.)

I now realize many folks on the left expected it meant a 3rd thing: actually becoming a Democrat, or something pretty close--supporting Democrats in lower offices as a rebuke to the party, even helping them build a winning presidential/congressional coalition in 2020.

Also stopping perfectly normal conservative Supreme Court justices in order to avenge Garland, voting against a tax cut they otherwise would have supported, etc.

Almost no #NeverTrump folks go that far. I mean, I opposed the tax cut, but I would have under any president.

Having defined #NeverTrump this way, they are now disgusted that no one meets their criteria. But anyone who met their criteria wouldn't be #NeverTrump; they'd just be Democrats. Which is a fine thing to be, but no need for a special label.

So #NeverTrumpers simultaneously feel like they are making a pretty huge concession--accepting policies they'll hate in order to get Trump's mix of racist vulgarity and incompetence out of the White House--while the left feels that they're crypto-Trumpians.

I'd argue that it's too much to expect right-leaning folks to be willing to help you give President Warren or Sanders a sweeping majority so they can make M4A and all the rest of it a reality, and that it makes more sense to focus on the goal you can all agree on--no more Trump.

But then I would say that, wouldn't I?

Anyway, realistically, you're never going to get #NeverTrump to support more than electing a Democrat and hoping for a Republican house of congress, preferably the Senate, to check said president's ambition.

So the left will have to decide whether they want them outside the tent or in. I myself don't see the value of alienating allies, however insignificant or powerless you consider them, but understand Democrats may feel differently.

I'll close by noting that the left's logic makes a great deal more sense in a parliamentary system, where a vote of no confidence can bring down a prime minister. But in a presidential system, where Trump is going to be in office for 4 years no matter what, it's less compelling.