'Ride this rocket into the ground': Conservative admits why he 'didn't see Trump coming'

In his latest column for The Bulwark — a conservative website opposed to President Donald Trump's administration — editor Jonathan V. Last acknowledged the conservative movement's role in making Trump's "authoritarian" second term possible, and admitted to his own biggest blind spot.

Last opened his Thursday essay by sharing an email from a reader welcoming him to the anti-Trump effort, but reminding him that liberals, leftists and Democrats had been fighting the same fight longer than he had. The reader also posited that there was a "straight line" from former President Ronald Regan's brand of traditional conservatism to the far-right Trump administration.

He then shared a familiar argument from traditional conservatives, with one insisting that Democrats' intransigence on Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork (a failed Reagan appointee) paved the road to a more stridently conservative Republican Party, thus sowing the seeds for someone like Trump to rise to power. Last suggested that both arguments hold water, but then offered an observation of his own along with an ask of his fellow conservatives to consider an uncomfortable truth: The pervasiveness of racism in American society, and its influence on the conservative movement.

READ MORE: 'Economists just don't agree': CNBC host gets Trump trade chief to make stunning admission

"I keep coming back to the African-American experience because it’s also central to understanding this moment," Last wrote. "African Americans have always understood America’s authoritarian shadow-self."

"Which is why I count my ignorance about the centrality of race in politics among my biggest analytical mistakes," he continued. "More than anything else, it’s why I didn’t see Trump coming."

However, Last didn't save all of his criticism for conservatives. He blamed "authoritarian-curious" voters on both sides of the political aisle for voting Trump into power the first time, noting that a significant portion of Americans on both the right and the left have long craved a strongman-type leader to bulldoze through institutions to accomplish their respective goals. He cited a recent piece from Nick Catoggio of The Dispatch (another conservative site founded by traditional Republicans opposed to the MAGA movement), who proposed that many Americans are well-aware of the country's descent into authoritarianism but won't do anything to stop it because they're, as commentator Andrew Sullivan said, "sick of this republic and no longer want to keep it if it means sharing power with those they despise."

"Americans will not be roused. All indications are that they’re going to ride this rocket into the ground," Catoggio wrote.

READ MORE: 'Could he be any more needy?' Trump mocked for call to Norwegian official about Nobel Prize

Click here to read Last's full essay in The Bulwark.