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NeverTrump and the Golden Calf of the Administrative State

Teeming on the far shore of the Red Sea, a great itinerant caravan, the Trump revolution, has completed the first leg of its long journey.

The blue wave of Egyptians sent to run down a people fleeing the slavery of the administrative state have drowned in a counter “red wave.” The parted loam of the waters closed around the advancing chariots of the Democrats’ radicalized base.

Tuesday’s events, while not unqualifiedly favoring Trump, have all the marks of a political miracle. Gains in the Senate in an election in which seats are lost in the House are a thing that has not been seen since 1914. Losses in the House, however unfortunate, are merely average for an off-year election. Democrats, for example, lost 68 seats in the House in 2010.

Miracles aside, crossing the Red Sea is not crossing the River Jordan. Nor is surviving the blue wave the same as entering the Promised Land of restored republican government. The Trump movement still has only what it can carry with it, and the political experience it has acquired along the way.

The hardest part of the journey, the desert—a waterless land of investigations, calumnies, obstructions, betrayals, and impeachments—lies ahead.

Trump’s revolutionary restoration of the Republican party is but half done. Before the GOP can enter the land of its birthright—that of constitutional, republican government—two crucial reforms are needed.

The first is the firm re-establishment of the law, the principles of the Declaration of Independence, as the light by which the Republican Party will be organized.

The second is equally fundamental, yet more complex. It is one thing to get the children of Abraham out of Egypt. It is another to get Egypt out of the children of Abraham.

When Moses went up the mount to receive the law, on the plain of the desert, Aaron, Moses’ trusted spokesman, fell into a grotesque liturgical abuse.

And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

And all the people brake off the golden earrings that were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.

And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (Exodus 32:2-4)

Mitt Romney, once eager to seek a cabinet role in the Trump Administration, has been elected a United States senator from Utah. In a striking parallel to Aaron’s perverted liturgy, Romney’s first pronouncement as senator-elect confirmed his NeverTrump bona fides.

In the manner of Aaron with his coordination of the smelting of the gold to forge the idol of the Golden Calf, NeverTrump works tirelessly to induce Republicans to pray to the false gods of a city that must be left behind: the progressive administrative state. NeverTrump “conservatives” say they accept the gains in the judiciary, but, they insist, it is the Egyptian gods that have delivered us.

Having sinned grievously, NeverTrump must atone.

There remain a handful of Republicans, Romney most prominently among them, who remain committed to an order that must be swept away if we are to restore the Republican Party.

Make no mistake, this is what NeverTrump has become. NeverTrump started for some as an objection to the inexperience and manners of Trump. Now that Trump has two years of experience, and his manners demonstrably are just that—manners and not morality—the remaining committed NeverTrumpers represent a purified strain of backward idolatry.

NeverTrump so refined is the Golden Calf of the administrative state. NeverTrump needs to be marginalized, purged, extirpated, from the Republican Party. While it is possible to compromise with Democrats, it is not possible to compromise with NeverTrump. We no longer can reasonably ask for their help. Such compromise would represent a corruption of a movement which cannot be one thing, an exodus to a Promised Land, and its opposite, Egypt, at the same time.

“And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.” (Exodus 32:35)

Photo Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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About Jay Whig

Jay Whig is an adjunct fellow of the Center for American Greatness. Whig practices law in New York and a resides in Connecticut, specializing in insolvency and restructuring. Opinions are his own.