You cannot save conservative values by becoming a Leftist
"Never Trump" will never be taken seriously by conservative Trump supporters when they embrace liberal positions on fiscal and social issues.
I was listening to The Bulwark's podcast, and Bill Kristol was crowing about how abortion represents an advantage for Biden in the 2024 election. Was Kristol always "pro-choice?" Well, no, he was not. He wrote an editorial for the Weekly Standard in January 1998 - the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade - arguing that the decision needed to be overturned. It was overturned in 2022, with justices appointed by Donald Trump making up three of the five votes needed. You can also see evidence of Kristol's (apparently former) pro-life views in the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Was Kristol ever legitimately pro-life, or just pretending to be? Has he been driven so mad by his hatred of Donald Trump that he is abandoning core principles just because they are also advocated by Trump?
Now, some will interject that Trump is not pro-life. I will grant you that, and reply that it does not matter. Trump has always been a transactional politician. He advanced pro-life policy and appointed pro-life Supreme Court justices because it benefited him politically. Had he remained "pro-choice," he could not have been elected in 2016, and he knows it.
Back to Kristol, this is the problem with some of the "Never Trump" movement. They will never be taken seriously by conservative Trump supporters when they embrace liberal positions on fiscal and social issues. They will be seen as turncoats, or dismissed as people who were Democrats all along. It is one thing to argue that Trump is the wrong person to represent conservative principles. It is another thing to abandon conservative principles to oppose Trump.
People like Kristol are helping Trump strengthen his grip on the Republican Party. Conservatives see Trump (a lifelong New York City liberal) as preserving the conservative stances of the party, while people like Kristol are trying to turn the party to the Left or openly helping Democrats.
What this also shows is there were a lot of grifters who claimed to be "pro-life" for the sake of getting the support of pro-life voters. When the Supreme Court stood in the way of all but the weakest pro-life laws, it was easy to claim to be "pro-life" while knowing that you didn't have the ability to actually do anything about it. Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, issue positions actually matter. The grifters who gladly accepted pro-life money and votes are now running for the hills because of the backlash. Or, like Kristol, they are so deranged by hatred of Donald Trump that they abandoned principles they held for decades.
The conservative movement does not need people abandoning their principles to oppose Trump. The conservative movement needs people standing up for the principles of individual liberty, economic freedom, small government, lower taxes, and protecting human rights. This includes upholding the value of human life. We need a conservative party, not a populist and needlessly pugnacious Trumpian party. Conservatives cannot save the party from Trumpism by abandoning the conservative principles they allegedly hold, especially on core issues like protecting innocent human life.