Never Trump Didn’t Fail. America Did.

I’m genuinely asking the question: who is Brad Slager?

I’m not sure who he is, but he recently wrote a piece for Townhall called “It Is Time for Never Trump Inc.™ to File Chapter 11”—and he included me in it, along with the folks at The xxxxxx, the Lincoln Project, Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, Charlie Sykes, and Michael Steele. Pretty good company. Very thoughtful of him. More specifically, he wrote, “Onetime Tea Party fixture Joe Walsh continues to bleat and moan about anything and anyone on the Right, all while managing to impress nobody on the Left.”

Interesting.

You see, Brad thinks the Never Trump movement failed, and since he names me, I thought it was only right to respond to him in kind, whoever the hell he is. I highly recommend reading his piece first, as well as the piece he alludes to, so you fully understand the context. Here goes…

Congratulations, Brad, on writing the same damn “Never Trump Is Dead” piece I’ve read about a thousand times over the past nine years. It’s funny that we’re so irrelevant, you wrote a whole piece about us. But here’s the thing: the reason you think the Never Trump movement is “finished” is exactly why you were never a part of it in the first place. You cynically dismiss the very concept of principles throughout your piece, and by so doing, make our entire point. I’m not sure you can understand something you don’t believe in.

Nevertheless, let’s dig in a bit. You call Never Trump a grift. Lol. Donald Trump’s PACs have burned through hundreds of millions in donor cash on legal bills, golf trips, and gold-plated bullshit. And that’s not to mention his crypto scheme, that Qatari jet, and his attempt to extort $230 million from the Justice Department. But I digress. Some of the people you’re mocking have been out here trying desperately to rebuild some semblance of sanity amid the civic waste MAGA has shat upon this country over the past decade. If that’s a grift, it’s the least profitable one in history.

And that’s okay. I’ll take moral solvency over a fat paycheck anyday. And I did. I was on your side of the fence once upon a time, Brad. I had a cushy, lucrative radio job, put out my share of divisive partisan garbage, even played a minor role in getting Trump elected. But I couldn’t take that paycheck anymore. I couldn’t take it once I saw what I had helped usher in—the lying, the stupidity, the cruelty, the indecency, and, yes, the bigotry. It was as if fate held up a mirror, and I clearly saw myself. Everything changed after that, and I’m glad it did.

Speaking of bigotry, I noticed you’re still hung up on Trump being misquoted about the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” march in 2017. That’s quaint. Let me bring you up to speed. Trump has had government pages scrubbed of references to black history. He has sought to remove black history exhibits from the Smithsonian. He is limiting refugee admissions to white South Africans. And have you seen the Department of Labor’s new campaign? That’s what we call a pattern, Brad.

And let’s not skip over how smugly you sneer at the so-called “low-level GOP fundraising operative,” Miles Bruner, who dared to speak some uncomfortable truth about that shameful incident in Charlottesville. You treat him as if rank-and-file Republicans who actually do the damn work of the party don’t matter.

That’s the tell right there: guys like you love to rant about “elites” and “the establishment,” but the second an unknown staffer pipes up with a critique that doesn’t worship Trump, they’re instantly belittled, minimized, erased. That’s pure condescension dressed up in MAGA cosplay. It’s the same sneering arrogance you accuse everyone else of, and it shows exactly how hollow your faux-populist “for the people” act really is.

Another good example of that condescension is when you feign befuddlement that the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which was handed down in 2022, is only now affecting Bruner enough to leave the GOP. Did you actually read Bruner’s piece? He explains in careful detail how his doubts about the party built up over a matter of years, but why practical matters kept him stuck in the “comfortable cocoon” of Republican politics.

I get that. It’s hard to leave a party you’ve been a part of for years, even decades. I did it and lost most of my friends and associates in the process. I respect Bruner for finally making the leap. For me, it came gradually. After Trump’s humiliating performance in Helsinki in 2018, I stopped supporting him and left MAGA for good. But I stayed a Republican and launched a primary bid against Trump in 2019. Once my campaign was over, I said I would support the Democratic candidate.

So hell yes, I backed Joe Biden in 2020. And I actively campaigned for Kamala Harris in 2024—because the alternative was a wannabe autocrat who tried to overthrow an election. I don’t regret that one bit. As much as you want them to, neither Biden’s nor Harris’ ordinary flaws excuse Trump’s extraordinary ones—or his callous disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law, and basic human decency. And besides, I’d rather argue in good faith with a run-of-the-mill Democrat than live under the boot of a fascist Republican.

You’re questioning my conservatism, Brad? Please define what it even means to be a real conservative in 2025. Republicans have utterly abandoned limited government, free trade, support for our democratic allies abroad, and any pretense toward fiscal restraint. I haven’t. I still believe in most of the exact same policies I championed as a Tea Party Congressman 15 years ago. I can’t say the same for Trump or the party he holds tightly in his grip. Ronald Reagan himself wouldn’t be a “real conservative” by your definition.

One last point. You say the fact that Donald Trump is back in the White House is proof that Never Trump failed. No, it’s proof that America failed a civics test. It doesn’t make anything we’ve said less true. In fact, the Donald Trump of today is pretty much everything we warned about all along. History only cares about right and wrong. And history’s gonna roast every last one of you who enabled the morass the country is now enduring.

So yeah, Brad, you can file this under Chapter Go Fuck Yourself. The Never Trump movement isn’t bankrupt. It’s solvent in something MAGA sold off cheap: integrity. And we’ll keep fighting for the Constitutional republic you abandoned long ago.

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