I would venture to say that in today's politics, Willaim F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and other prominent conservative philosophers and leaders that reigned in the era of conservatism in the 20th century would now be labeled as RINO's by the Trump wing in the Republican Party. On Monday, Donald Trump said in a press release, "No more money for RINOS. They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base — they will never lead us to Greatness. Send your donation to Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com. We will bring it all back stronger than ever before!"
The term RINO is grossly overused today, and I've yet to find a concrete definition of the term by those that routinely use it. Donald Trump has famously used the term on Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, George W. Bush, and well, any Republican opponent that hasn't been fiercely loyal to him. Republican in Name Only (RINO), has been a term thrown around by Trump voters and populists within the Republican Party for several years now, and the irony behind this proposition is that they themselves are the RINO, with Trump being the ringleader of the crash (pack of rhino's). How would I define the term? Those that use the Republican Party to achieve political power, and not to champion conservatism.
The Republican Party that was sprung into existence in 1854 harnessed in the conservative movement and assembled against the expansion of the presidential branch that was witnessed under Andrew Jackson, and assembled in protest of the Kansas-Missouri Act, which allowed majority rule to determine the expansion of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln and other key leaders in the early Republican Party knew, just like our founders did, that there were real dangers in majority rule.
As the years went by, the Republican Party propped up many quality conservative presidents and representatives, such as William Taft, Calvin Coolidge, and my conservative heroes, Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater. Since President Reagan, conservatism has ebbed and flowed within the Republican Party, which ultimately brought us to the 2016 election in which Donald Trump and his populist brand hijacked the base of the Republican Party, and then turned them against principled conservatives such as Pat Toomey, Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney, and philosophers George Will, Jonah Goldberg, and others.
While I don't intend to defend George Bush, John McCain, and other recent Republicans that swayed away from the conservatism that Goldwater and Reagan championed several decades ago, it is a piece intended to convict Trump of being the ultimate RINO.
During the Republican Primary debates of 2015 and 2016, let us not forget that Trump was the only candidate that did not pledge that he would not run on a third-party ticket if we were to lose in the primary. What does this point to? It points to Trump only using the Republican platform to achieve political power (and using it to increase his campaign funding). His latest stunt, trying to overturn an election through unconstitutional methods, is one of the more blatant attacks on conservatism, let alone our democracy, that I can remember. Conservatism means conserving the principles that founded our nation, and that created our Constitution. Since 1854, this is what the Republican Party has largely tried to accomplish. Trump swayed from this notion, and in so doing proved he is the ultimate RINO.
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