Lifelong conservative and Bulwark founder reveals 'emergency’ reasoning behind Trump snub

Calling the moment “an emergency” and making clear that he views Donald Trump as unfit to return to the presidency, prominent conservative and staunch Trump critic Charlie Sykes said he will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris – and encouraged other conservatives to follow suit.

“This is the theme echoed by essentially all of the conservatives who have broken ranks: We may disagree on policy, but this is an emergency,” Sykes wrote in a column Monday for MSNBC. “And in every genuine crisis, people of goodwill put aside their differences. When the emergency passes, we can go back to arguing about other things; but right now, the moment demands that we make common cause, and put country over party. Even, and especially, if that means voting for Kamala Harris.”

Sykes said that he refused to be a conservative who "reject[s] Trump but cannot bring themselves to vote for the one candidate who could stop him.” He lists as part of that group anti-Trump Republicans like former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), former Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former President George W. Bush and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.

“Many of these officials and pundits recognize the dangers that Trump poses, but want to preserve their ‘relevance’ in the party; others clearly hope for Trump’s defeat, but want to keep their hands clean by staying above the fray and casting a write-in vote,” according to Sykes.

He said he joined the “newly minted pro-Harris conservatives” in making public that he intended to vote for the Democratic nominee. He added the names of other “lifelong conservatives who have defied partisan loyalty” to endorse Harris. He named former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY); former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and former Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS).

Sykes added in his piece that the significance of the GOP defections should not be underestimated and referenced a line in an article he wrote for The Atlantic where he said: “Before Trump, the ideological divide between Harris and conservative Republicans might have been too large to bridge. But this is not a normal campaign.”

“But the newly minted pro-Harris conservatives recognize that this election isn’t about those things at all,” he wrote in his column Monday. “They recognize that a second Trump term will transcend typical ideological/political differences.”