The Lincoln Project/YouTube
If you’re a regular reader of the Bulwark, you’ll know that “Meatball’s Musk Moment” by Charlie Sykes was its lead story for much of yesterday, prior to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s declaration of his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.
It was a clarifying moment for those who share Sykes’s bottom-line evaluation of Donald Trump’s fitness for office, but might have been confounded by his trajectory in recent years. After the 2016 election, the Wisconsin native wrote that he had hoped Hillary Clinton would prevail because Midwesterners were averse to Donald Trump’s “pugilistic style” and lamented that voters “must tolerate bizarre behavior, dishonesty, crudity and cruelty.”
Six and a half years later, Sykes remains nominally opposed to Trump, but seemingly for a different set of reasons than he originally laid out. The pugilism, crudity, and cruelty are no longer bugs, but silver linings. “Meatball” is a shortened adaptation of Trump’s not-so-loving nickname for his chief rival for the nomination, and an apparent commentary on DeSantis’s weight. Sykes no longer deplores that side of the Donald, he emulates it in an effort to further his political prospects.
Bill Kristol, an early critic of Trump’s political rise and lifelong conservative pundit-operative, has developed a similarly strange new respect for Trump’s aggressive, masculine energy after previously comparing his “manly” qualities to those of Benito Mussolini.
“DeSantis was always on Fox when Rupert was for him. Now he announces on Twitter when Elon’s for him. Kind of Beta, no? Trump does CNN town hall, goes into the (pseudo-) lion’s den. Looks kind of Alpha, no?” he posited on Wednesday.
The jackals at the Lincoln Project, who introduced themselves as the Republicans who “want Trump defeated,” have for months gleefully predicted that Trump will coast through the GOP primary. Rick Wilson delivered a glowing review of Trump’s political skill after the 2022 midterms, declaring that Trump “smelled blood” after DeSantis’s 20 point reelection victory.
Yesterday, the group published a Sykes-esque open letter to DeSantis asserting that the governor has “never been attacked like Trump will wreck you,” and that Trump will go through him “like fingers through pudding.”
“There’s no reason this can’t be fun! We’re sure going to love watching you crash and burn,” they continued, promising to assist Trump in his effort to vanquish DeSantis in the primary.
For many, the Trump era made it difficult to remain a Trump-skeptical conservative in the media, but made it exponentially easier — and more profitable — to present as a reformed conservative for whom Trump’s rise served as wake-up call. There’s a much larger market for conservative names bashing Republicans on the set of Nicolle Wallace’s MSNBC show than there is for those who critique Trump while remaining substantively conservative. The undeniable success of the Bulwark and Lincoln Project as self-perpetuating institutions demonstrates as much.
Yet in order to maximize the opportunities this assumed identity provides, Trump must remain centerstage. Hence the efforts of Sykes and Wilson.
These malleable sometimes-Trump pundits might object to this characterization on the basis that DeSantis deserves no sympathy given his own support of Trump. It is true that neither they nor anyone else owes the Florida governor their support.
But there are plenty of tells that this is less about an objection to DeSantis than it is about following a business plan. Their brand of Never Trumper does not distinguish between different brands of Republicans. The Lincoln Project spent millions in an unsuccessful effort to oust Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), the most moderate member of the upper chamber of Congress. Kristol endorsed serial election truther Terry McAuliffe over unthreatening Glenn Youngkin in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial race.
Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia who stood up to Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, earned many an attack, including one from ex-Ted Cruz staffer Amanda Carpenter, who conveniently ignored the refusal, from his opponent Stacey Abrams, to accept her 2018 loss to Kemp.
The journey from principled objector to Trump’s character to thinly-veiled booster of him has been longer for some than others in the Never Trump camp. Some may regret that they feel cornered into adopting the talking points of their new audience and benefactors. For others, it’s appeared all too easy to not only renounce their past beliefs, but to reveal their own resemblance to the man they profess to revile.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
