from John Podhoretz at Commentary The Truly Forgotten Republican Voter

But the truly forgotten Republican voter never bought Trump’s new outfit. I mean the Republican person who believes in limited government and a strong national defense and some kind of a moral frame for our politics—a moral frame she shares with Democrats and liberals in the sense that she believes the causes and candidates for whom she has worked and voted are engaged in the act of doing good for the country, doing good for others, and representing a positive understanding of humanity.

Many Democrats and liberals, and most activist Democrats and liberals, do not understand this about Republicans and conservatives and do not accept it. They have always seen conservatism as “naked villainy with odd old ends stolen out of holy writ.”

They believe that if you believe differently from them, you are seeking to do active harm to the country and to others and to humanity, because the policies you support are solely to your benefit. They believe you only want tax cuts and deregulation to enrich yourself, not because you want to free the economy from the government’s heavy and confiscatory hand. They believe you support efforts to prevent voter fraud not because you believe organized efforts have been made to steal elections but because you want to steal elections. And, most important, they believe you support a traditionalist view of life not because you believe it is the deepest reflection of natural law or God’s truth but because you want to privilege males and heterosexuals and seek to disempower women and those who pursue what used to be called “alternative lifestyles.”

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