Written for moderate Republicans, from a conservative perspective
There’s a growing feeling among a lot of us on the center-right — something we don’t always say out loud, but we feel it just the same. It’s the sense that Donald Trump has slipped beyond the reach of normal political checks and balances. Not because he’s powerful in the traditional sense, but because he no longer recognizes the legitimacy of any system that might challenge him. Courts, Congress, elections, facts, even basic conservative principles — everything becomes “fake” the moment it doesn’t serve him.
That’s not the mindset of a leader. It’s the mindset of someone who genuinely believes he cannot be wrong. And that’s dangerous, not just for the country, but for the Republican Party we spent decades building.
Here’s the conservative reality: If evidence ever emerged that implicated Trump in wrongdoing, he wouldn’t accept it. Not from a court. Not from Congress. Not from anyone. He would dig in, deny everything, and dare the system to stop him. That is not the temperament conservatives once demanded from our leaders.
And it puts the burden — fairly or not — on Republicans in Congress.
Because Democrats can’t restrain Trump alone. Because the courts won’t act quickly enough. Because the presidency comes with enormous unilateral power.
It falls to Republicans to make a hard but patriotic choice: Preserve one man’s ego, or preserve the constitutional order. The conservative answer should be obvious.
This isn’t about embracing the left. It’s about joining them — when necessary — to uphold something higher than party: the stability of the nation. Veto overrides. Bipartisan guardrails. Basic accountability. These aren’t acts of betrayal. They’re acts of stewardship. They’re what responsible Republicans did during Watergate, during Teapot Dome, and in every era when a president — any president — lost sight of their limits.
And while we’re restoring that balance, we also need to repair another issue conservatives should care about: the unchecked power of ICE. The agency has drifted far from its original mission, acting in ways that should concern anyone who respects limited government. A conservative who believes in law and order should also believe in oversight, restraint, and due process. ICE, in its current form, threatens all three.
We can be a party that respects borders without turning a blind eye to abuses. We can be a party of strength without abandoning humanity. We can protect the country without tolerating agencies that think they’re above the Constitution.
The conservative path forward isn’t surrendering to Trump, nor is it surrendering to the left. It’s reclaiming the values that made the Republican Party worth belonging to in the first place — accountability, restraint, constitutionalism, and a belief that government serves the people, not the other way around.
If Republicans can remember that, Trump becomes containable. And if Trump becomes containable, the rest of the system becomes fixable.
That’s the conservative way out. And it’s long overdue.
