MILWAUKEE=20 =E2=80=94 After nearly 25 years, I=E2=80=99m stepping down from my daily = conservative talk radio=20 show at the end of this month. I=E2=80=99m not leaving because of the = rise of Donald J.=20 Trump (my reasons are personal), but I have to admit that the campaign = has made=20 my decision easier. The conservative media is broken and the = conservative=20 movement deeply compromised.
In=20 April, after Mr. Trump decisively lost the Wisconsin Republican primary, = I had=20 hoped that we here in the Midwest would turn out to be a firewall of=20 rationality. Our political culture was distinctly inhospitable to Mr. = Trump=E2=80=99s=20 divisive, pugilistic style; the conservatives who had been successful = here had=20 tended to be serious, reform-oriented and able to express their ideas in = more=20 than 140 characters. But in November, Wisconsin lined up with the rest = of the=20 Rust Belt to give the presidency to Mr. Trump.
How=20 on earth did that happen?
Before this year, I thought I had a relatively = solid grasp=20 on what conservatism stood for and where it was going. Over the previous = decade,=20 I helped advance the careers of conservatives like House Speaker Paul D. = Ryan;=20 Gov. Scott Walker; Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican = National=20 Committee; and Senator Ron Johnson. In 2010, conservatives won big = majorities in=20 the Wisconsin State Legislature, and I openly supported many of their = reforms,=20 including changes to collective bargaining and expansions of school = choice.
In short, I was under the impression that = conservatives=20 actually believed things about free trade, balanced budgets, character = and=20 respect for constitutional rights. Then along came this campaign.
Continue=20 reading the main storyOn the surface, the = explanations=20 for Mr. Trump=E2=80=99s improbable win in Wisconsin are simple enough: = He won big=20 margins in rural, blue-collar counties and won the pivotal Green Bay = area by=20 double digits. But he underperformed Mitt Romney in the vote-rich = Milwaukee=20 suburbs and ended up getting fewer votes in victory than Mr. Romney = received in=20 his 2012 defeat. Hillary Clinton, however, got about 39,000 fewer votes = in=20 heavily Democratic Milwaukee County than President Obama did four years = earlier.=20 Democrats simply stayed home, though that is obviously not the whole = story.
That is what I saw, = and this is=20 what it might mean for the future of conservatism. When I wrote in = August 2015=20 that Mr. Trump was a cartoon version of every left-wing media stereotype = of the=20 reactionary, nativist, misogynist right, I thought that I was well = within the=20 mainstream of conservative thought =E2=80=94 only to find conservative = Trump critics=20 denounced for apostasy by a right that decided that it was comfortable = with=20 embracing Trumpism. But in Wisconsin, conservative voters seemed to = reject what=20 Mr. Trump was selling, at least until after the convention.
To be sure, some of my callers embraced Mr. = Trump=E2=80=99s=20 suggestion for a ban on Muslims entering the country and voiced=20 support for a proposal to deport all Muslims =E2=80=94 even = citizens. One caller=20 compared American Muslims to rabid dogs. But right to the end, = relatively few of=20 my listeners bought into the crude nativism Mr. Trump was selling at his = rallies.
What they did buy into was the argument = that this=20 was a =E2=80=9Cbinary choice.=E2=80=9D No matter how bad Mr. Trump was, = my listeners argued, he=20 could not possibly be as bad as Mrs. Clinton. You simply cannot = overstate this=20 as a factor in the final outcome. As our politics have become more = polarized,=20 the essential loyalties shift from ideas, to parties, to tribes, to = individuals.=20 Nothing else ultimately matters.
In this binary tribal world, where everything is = at stake,=20 everything is in play, there is no room for quibbles about character, or = truth,=20 or principles. If everything =E2=80=94 the Supreme Court, the fate of = Western=20 civilization, the survival of the planet =E2=80=94 depends on tribal = victory, then=20 neither individuals nor ideas can be determinative. I watched this play = out in=20 real time, as conservatives who fully understood the threat that Mr. = Trump posed=20 succumbed to the argument about the Supreme Court. As even Mr. Ryan = discovered,=20 neutrality was not acceptable; if you were not for Mr. Trump, then you = were for=20 Mrs. Clinton.
The state of our politics also explains why none = of the=20 revelations, outrages or gaffes seemed to dent Mr. Trump=E2=80=99s = popularity.
In this political universe, voters accept that = they must=20 tolerate bizarre behavior, dishonesty, crudity and cruelty, because the = other=20 side is always worse; the stakes are such that no qualms can get in the = way of=20 the greater cause.
For many listeners, nothing was worse than = Hillary=20 Clinton. Two decades of vilification had taken their toll: Listeners = whom I knew=20 to be decent, thoughtful individuals began forwarding stories with = conspiracy=20 theories about President Obama and Mrs. Clinton =E2=80=94 that he was a = secret Muslim,=20 that she ran a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor. When I tried to = point out=20 that such stories were demonstrably false, they generally refused to = accept=20 evidence that came from outside their bubble. The echo chamber had = morphed into=20 a full-blown alternate reality silo of conspiracy theories, fake news = and=20 propaganda.
And this is where it became painful. Even among=20 Republicans who had no illusions about Mr. Trump=E2=80=99s character or = judgment, the=20 demands of that tribal loyalty took precedence. To resist was an act of=20 betrayal.
When it became clear = that I was=20 going to remain #NeverTrump, conservatives I had known and worked with = for more=20 than two decades organized boycotts of my show. One prominent G.O.P. = activist=20 sent out an email blast calling me a =E2=80=9CJudas goat,=E2=80=9D and = calling for postelection=20 retribution. As the summer turned to fall, I knew that I was losing = listeners=20 and said so publicly.
And then, there was social media. Unless you = have=20 experienced it, it=E2=80=99s difficult to describe the virulence of the = Twitter storms=20 that were unleashed on Trump skeptics. In my timelines, I found myself = called a=20 =E2=80=9Ccuckservative,=E2=80=9D a favorite gibe of white nationalists; = and someone Photoshopped=20 my face into a gas chamber. Under the withering fire of the trolls, one=20 conservative commentator and Republican political leader after another = fell in=20 line.
How had we gotten here?
One staple of every radio talk show was, of = course, the=20 bias of the mainstream media. This was, indeed, a target-rich = environment. But=20 as we learned this year, we had succeeded in persuading our audiences to = ignore=20 and discount any information from the mainstream media. Over = time, we=E2=80=99d=20 succeeded in delegitimizing the media altogether =E2=80=94 all the = normal guideposts=20 were down, the referees discredited.
That left a void that we conservatives failed to = fill. For=20 years, we ignored the birthers, the racists, the truthers and other = conspiracy=20 theorists who indulged fantasies of Mr. Obama=E2=80=99s secret Muslim = plot to subvert=20 Christendom, or who peddled baseless tales of Mrs. Clinton=E2=80=99s = murder victims.=20 Rather than confront the purveyors of such disinformation, we changed = the=20 channel because, after all, they were our allies, whose quirks could be = allowed=20 or at least ignored.
We destroyed our own immunity to fake news, = while=20 empowering the worst and most reckless voices on the right.
=20This was not mere na=C3=AFvet=C3=A9. It was also = a moral failure,=20 one that now lies at the heart of the conservative movement even in its = moment=20 of apparent electoral triumph. Now that the election is over, = don=E2=80=99t expect any=20 profiles in courage from the Republican Party pushing back against those = trends;=20 the gravitational pull of our binary politics is too strong.
I=E2=80=99m only glad I=E2=80=99m not going to be = a part of it=20 anymore.
Continue=20 reading the main story