Some prominent movement conservatives have declared that they won’t support Donald Trump even if he wins the Republican nomination. The law professor and talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt, though, says he will support the populist businessman if he makes it to the general election. In doing so, he has become one of the most prominent right-leaning intellectuals to formulate a case that conservatives should prefer Trump to Hillary Clinton.
And the case that he makes is strikingly, tellingly weak.
“If Trump is the nominee,” Hewitt declared Monday, “I will support him for six reasons.”As it turns out, the first “three” of those “six” reasons are judicial appointments:
The first three are the existing and probable two additional Supreme Court nominations he will get to make. Judges Diane Sykes and Bill Pryor are two fine judges that Trump has mentioned as possible nominees and he made the right commitment on religious liberty to me on stage Thursday night. He won’t screw these up. More precisely, it is a lock that Clinton would screw them up and at least a fighting chance he wouldn’t.
Here are the other three reasons Hewitt offers:
Fourth, Trump’s an honest-to-God builder and he will rebuild the Navy, which must be done. Soon.
Fifth, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will at least think twice before crossing him.
And, finally, sixth: Donald’s daughter and Svengali Ivanka is a smart, smart, smart lady with an extraordinary intellect and influence on her father. We get the GOP’s own Valerie Jarrett, only this one with a sense of America’s role in the world and the same resolve to succeed as Jarrett possesses.
Nick Gillespie of Reason writes, “These strike me as incredibly piss-poor reasons to support anyone for any office, much less Trump for president.” On the whole, I'd call most of Hewitt’s case laughable, and I can’t imagine that it will persuade many conservatives, whether or not they end up voting for the Republican nominee in 2016.