We're Doing This Again?

On 2024 and the Big Orange Man

I vividly remember 2015. I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed college conservative. Blissfully tapping out my thoughts on everything for almost nobody, I Wordpress-blogged my way through the slow-motion trainwreck that was the Republican primary race. A few good souls did read it, but really, I was writing for myself.

Those old blogs are fun for me to leaf back through now. It is truly dizzying to think about just how much has changed since then, not just politically but in every sphere of all our lives. I’ve changed, too, of course. I’m older, wiser, etc. I’m no longer a David French fangirl. I’ve been chastened and heartened in my pessimism by the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. But at heart, I haven’t changed all that much, I don’t think. In essence, I remain what I have always been: a child of Reagan-era American conservatism, earnestly and eternally committed to conserving things.

Which was why Donald Trump made bright-eyed, bushy-tailed college conservative me so furious.

Seriously, I was cute, but I had some good lines. Like this: “Over and over, we have heard the refrain, ‘better than the Democrats, better than the Democrats, ANYBODY but a Democrat,’ and now we have Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the anybody.” Or this: “Flip a coin. Roll a die. But for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t sell your soul to Donald Trump. Don’t pledge your fealty to this vulturous shell of a man who despises you almost as much as he loves himself.” Okay, I was a bit dramatic. I was a college conservative.