I’m a libertarian, not a conservative, and yet one wishes the best for The Lincoln Project, a national conservative effort to defeat Donald Trump:
We do not undertake this task lightly nor from ideological preference. Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain. However, the priority for all patriotic Americans must be a shared fidelity to the Constitution and a commitment to defeat those candidates who have abandoned their constitutional oaths, regardless of party. Electing Democrats who support the Constitution over Republicans who do not is a worthy effort.
These times require a grand coalition, and among its members will be – and must be – people of different partisan views united in a common constitutional defense.
It’s true that in many places, including Whitewater, a longstanding local boosterism – eroding as it did the standards of honesty and sound reasoning on which a well-ordered politics depends – made it easier for Trumpism to rise and spread. Some officials in this town from a decade ago, for example, who fancied themselves serious conservative or liberal men, were little more than third-tier circus barkers. (Perhaps they’re shocked – simply shocked! – by Trump now, but their own dodgy data and serial exaggerations paved the way for Trumpism.)
We who are libertarian – even those of us in small and faraway places – will happily join as we are able with serious and principled conservatives and liberals in the honorable work of defending the constitutional order.