Anything but a Democrat, it doesn't matter who, it doesn't matter what they think, if they can make fun of a Democrat, if they can provoke #liberaltears, they're good enough. In the North Caroline State Legislature this past week, as reported by the Washington Post, a late night budget measure passed by Republicans contained further funding for anti-opioid programs, but at the cost of educational dollars exclusively drawn from Democratic districts.

"The money to fund new pilot programs for this cause had to come from somewhere, and the Republicans decided to take it out of education programs in Democratic districts [...] with $316,646 cut from two early college high schools and the state banned from financially supporting a science, math and technology program that has helped many African American and low-income families."

Is that conservatism? Is that the new Republican party? How is it that compassionate, intellectual, logical conservatives have become so outnumbered by anti-intellectual, liberal-hating, moral relativists? They still exist, I know some of them, but almost all of them compromised their own morality to vote for a man who genuinely represents many things they despise, and farcically represents a pseudo-conservativism which is already far from what Reagan would accept. Was it really about the Supreme Court, or was it about winning? Was Hillary really so bad? It's a question Republicans, especially those who work on Capitol Hill, need to think about, because Trumpism and anti-leftism are running the Republican party into the ground. Are you a Republican or an American? Both? Okay, then in what order? Where do you draw the line between your conservatism and the current Republican brand? because we all know that the two concepts seem farther apart every day. In 1955, in the first ever issue of National Review, William F. Buckley wrote the following:

"Among our convictions: It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens' lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government (the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian side. The profound crisis of our era is, in essence, the conflict between the Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to scientific utopias, and the disciples of Truth, who defend the organic moral order. We believe that truth is neither arrived at nor illuminated by monitoring election results, binding though these are for other purposes, but by other means, including a study of human experience. On this point we are, without reservations, on the conservative side."

Will Donald Trump "defend the moral order?" Is he a "disciple of truth?" No he won't, and no he is not, but he won the Republican nomination, won the Presidency as a Republican, and has already begun signing Republican legislation. There is a new Republican party, and he owns it.