In a forum at Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center, former Trump Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications Michael Anton discussed his new book After The Flight 93 Election and laid out a comprehensive critique of the conservative establishment. Anton warned that if the Republican Party could not coalesce around the president, it might find itself out from power for good.
As the Epoch Times reported:
“The idea that Kavanaugh was a “drunken Viking serial rapist” was “so utterly preposterous” anyone who claimed to support strict constructionist judges especially should have found it a slam dunk to back him.
“Anyone who couldn’t stand up for Brett Kavanaugh,” Anton said, forfeited their claim to such support. Yet establishment “conservatives were so doctrinal … they couldn’t even do that.”
As the forum drew to a close, an audience member asked Anton, “Do you think that Trumpism is a blip?”
He responded, “It’s not a blip.” Anton granted the Trump movement was “weaker politically in terms of its number of adherents” than prior analogous coalitions, but insisted, “It’s not a blip in that we can go back.”
“Trump is a disruptive figure,” Anton claimed, and thus the president needs to be followed by a party that continues to secure the border and reorient foreign policy.
If it doesn’t, Anton said, the Republican Party might outlive its usefulness. Was Abraham Lincoln sad to see the Whig Party go, Anton asked?”
Watch the full conversation featuring Anton and Hillsdale’s Matthew Spalding here:
