'Never Trump' conservatives like Meghan McCain are trying to whitewash Sarah Palin's role as the proto-Trump. Don't let them

Like many of the so-called #NeverTrump crowd, Meghan McCain would like to airbrush history when it comes to explaining how and why Donald Trump came to be the bullying, dominating leader of the Republican Party—to paint Trump as an aberration who seized control of the party from the outside. Recently, she even tried to blame Barack Obama for the Trump phenomenon: “The culture war that I believe is real, and is raging in this country, I believe was ushered in with his administration,” she said, “and then exacerbated in the Trump administration.”

That, of course, is not what happened. The culture wars are a strategy that had its beginning during the Reagan Administration and were cooked into a concrete form by GOP “thinkers” like Patrick Buchanan and Newt Gingrich, but completely consumed the party beginning in 2008, when McCain’s father, John, selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. So I wrote a Twitter thread replying to McCain, laying out this history with video documentation.

Here’s the thread. So far, unfortunately, McCain hasn’t responded. Other “NeverTrumpers”—with similar ties to the 2008 McCain campaign—have in fact contacted me, and I hope to have a fuller report on their responses soon. In the meantime, enjoy the links and the videos.