Ross Douthat is a traditional, moralistic Catholic, so you would expect him to have serious reservations about Donald Trump, and he does. He calls Trump a “dictator on Twitter,” which is a slightly less punchy version of “man on golf cart.” He despises his white nationalism, his corruption, and his lies. You can count him as an ally of the Never Trumpers.
More than anything else, however, Douthat is disappointed in him. In his view, the Trump presidency presented an opportunity to break from the usual GOP tax cuts for wealthy businessmen and support a truly populist plan which emphasized benefits for struggling workers. With that change, a slightly more morally acceptable position on immigration, and more discipline on Twitter, Trump could be riding high in the polls. Instead, he chose the worst of both worlds: overt white nationalism and authoritarianism in rhetoric and support for plutocracy in actual deeds. He will pay the price for it on Tuesday in spite of the roaring economy.
Is Douthat right? No, because he has an unrealistically rosy view of GOP voters, who quite knowingly chose Trump over Marco Rubio, his favored candidate, in 2016. Trump continues to throw racist red meat to his base because it is what they demand. He supported tax cuts for business because he has a genuine affinity for other wealthy people and because the GOP simply does not think it can survive without the support of its donor class.
The fundamental premise of the GOP is that the PBPs get tax cuts, deregulation, and lots of official respect for their supposedly unequaled contributions to the nation’s welfare, while the Reactionaries get vocal moral support against real and imagined opponents of white Christian America and friendly Supreme Court appointments. Trump is delivering both. For Douthat’s version of the GOP to exist, the PBPs would have to accept Reactionary economic policies, and the Reactionaries would have to give up racism. It won’t happen unless and until the GOP as we know it evolves into something completely different, which would probably require some sort of national catastrophe.