Max Boot once felt "incredulous that anyone could possibly compare Reagan to Trump"; he now sees "startling similarities."
For Nor many people, the 2016 election was a catastrophe. For Max Boot, it was a betrayal. He'd been a movement conservative: a loud voice for the Iraq War, an editor of The Weekly Standard, and an adviser to the campaigns of John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Marco Rubio. Boot took heart when Republicans initially closed ranks against Donald Trump's candidacy.
Trump is "a madman who must be stopped," Bobby Jindal said. "The man is utterly amoral," Ted Cruz agreed.
Rubio called him "the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the Presidency." For Rick Perry, he was "a cancer on conservatism." Then, one by one, they all endorsed him, and he won.
Trump's election shook Boot's worldview. Was this what Republicanism was about? Had Boot been deluded the whole time? He wrote a book, "The Corrosion of Conservatism" (2018), about his breakup with the G.O.P. The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, he could now admit, made good points. His advocacy of the war in Iraq had been a "big mistake," and he felt guilt over "all the lives lost." Boot was like a confused driver who had arrived at an unintended destination and wondered where he'd missed the off-ramp.
When was the right moment to have left the Republican Party? For many anti-Trump conservatives, the lodestar remains Ronald Reagan.
This story is from the September 16, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the September 16, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The K-Pop King - Chairman Bang is bringing his formula for creating idols to the U.S.
Scooter Braun was in a tailspin. It was February, 2021, and the music manager, who had made his name launching the careers of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, was nearing forty and facing a brutal divorce. An equally nasty battle with Taylor Swift, over his ownership of her song catalogue, had sullied his public image. Rumors circulated that the future of Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings, was in doubt. Amid this tumult, he was surprised to receive an invitation to speak with someone who had long fascinated him: the South Korean producer Bang Si-hyuk—known to admirers as Hitman Bang.
Silicon Valley's Influence Game - From crypto to A.I., tech titans are pouring money into super PACS to savage their political opponents.
One morning in February, Katie Porter was sitting in bed, futzing around on her computer, when she learned that she was the target of a vast techno-political conspiracy. For the past five years, Porter had served in the House of Representatives on behalf of Orange County, California. She’d become famous—at least, C-span and MSNBC famous—for her eviscerations of business tycoons, often aided by a whiteboard that she used to make camera- friendly presentations about corporate greed. Now she was in a highly competitive race to replace the California senator Dianne Feinstein, who had died a few months earlier. The primary was in three weeks.
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IT TAKES A VILLAGE
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John Lewis knew how to put a legacy of heroism.
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To achieve good health, you must maintain a regular sleep schedule, and be able to get back to sleep once you are awake.
THE SIGHTED WORLD
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