#NeverTrump Is Now #PresidentTrump

Both I and others who were formerly #NeverTrump during the election, have since spoken about the need to put the movement to bed, now that he has defied all of our expectations and will be the next President of the United States. I have little more to add that hasn’t already been said, but I think it important to reiterate the need for all of us, both Americans in general and Republicans and conservatives in particular, to come together after such a divisive election and hope for the best from the incoming Trump administration.

In 2009, just before Barack Obama’s inauguration, Rush Limbaugh famously said, “I hope he fails.” Many of the same liberals who decried Limbaugh then are today expressing a similar sentiment about Trump, openly hoping for his failure. The double standard is, quite frankly, unsurprising, but one key difference between the two is the meaning behind the words. Limbaugh made it quite clear in context that he was hoping for the failure of liberalism, which would therefore (according to him, and a sentiment with which I agree) be good for the country. Liberals today, meanwhile, are hoping for the failure of a Trump presidency in general, regardless of policies or ideology, as an angry response to losing an election they were certain of winning.

Hoping for the failure of a Trump presidency, under those conditions, is hoping for the failure of the country.

I was sharply critical of Trump during the entire election. The number of articles I wrote here alone, against Trump, is too many to link individually in this post. But now that he will be the 45^th President, I hope he succeeds. I hope he truly does surround himself with good people and listen to their advice; appoint conservative Supreme Court justices; and is, in his words, “unbelievably presidential.” His previous record gave me little hope that he would govern as anything other than a big-government liberal, and through party loyalty drag the Republican Party to the left, as well.

But I wish him a successful presidency, based on his own measure of success during the campaign. After a hard-fought campaign, he deserves the benefit of the doubt until he at least enters office.