Jonah Goldberg:
Last night in his victory speech, Donald Trump said:
Many many people are calling that you wouldn’t even believe. The media, the press, they wouldn’t believe. People that have said the worst things about me—I’ve never had anything said about me like this. You know in my businesses I’ve always been very respected [sic]. People didn’t talk to me this way. But in politics it’s easy. The worst things. And they’re calling now, and they’re calling us all, and they’re saying we’d love to get on the train, the Trump train… we’d love to get on the team.
And I actually spoke to one today. And—who was vicious! I mean, this guy was unbelievable. And I said I love having you, and, you know, I think it’s terrific, but after what you said about me, how can you possibly join our team? And he said, Mr. Trump don’t even think about it, don’t worry about it, there’ll be no problem. In other words he’s a politician. There’s no problem. I woulda had a hard time. But we have a lot of people coming on. Lots of congressmen, I have to thank Jeff Sessions . . .
Assuming he’s telling the truth — and I have reason to believe him – Trump has a great point here. Indeed, this taps into what I hate most about Washington and about politics. If you’ve been saying that Donald Trump is a threat to the Republic, that it would be dangerous and reckless to give him access to nuclear weapons or even that, if nominated, he would wreck the Republican Party, on what grounds can you now jump on board the Trump Train?
Were these people simply lying? If not, are they endorsing Trump regardless of what they actually believe? Is party loyalty that important?
I’m not talking about people who’ve sincerely supported Trump from way back. From what I can tell they truly believe that Trump is the patriotic choice. Nor am I talking about people who’ve never taken a strong position against Trump and now feel they must vote against Hillary.
But if you’ve been a committed Never Trump person and now, simply because he’s the nominee, you’re surrendering to Trump, shame on you. And it sounds like Trump agrees with me.
