The Show Must Go On

What if Ronald Reagan’ Presidency never really ended?

- DANIEL IMMERWAHR

Max Boot once felt "incredulous that anyone could possibly compare Reagan to Trump"; he now sees "startling similarities."

For Nor many people, the 2016 election was a catastrophe. For Max Boot, it was a betrayal. He'd been a movement conservative: a loud voice for the Iraq War, an editor of The Weekly Standard, and an adviser to the campaigns of John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Marco Rubio. Boot took heart when Republicans initially closed ranks against Donald Trump's candidacy.

Trump is "a madman who must be stopped," Bobby Jindal said. "The man is utterly amoral," Ted Cruz agreed.

Rubio called him "the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the Presidency." For Rick Perry, he was "a cancer on conservatism." Then, one by one, they all endorsed him, and he won.

Trump's election shook Boot's worldview. Was this what Republicanism was about? Had Boot been deluded the whole time? He wrote a book, "The Corrosion of Conservatism" (2018), about his breakup with the G.O.P. The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, he could now admit, made good points. His advocacy of the war in Iraq had been a "big mistake," and he felt guilt over "all the lives lost." Boot was like a confused driver who had arrived at an unintended destination and wondered where he'd missed the off-ramp.

When was the right moment to have left the Republican Party? For many anti-Trump conservatives, the lodestar remains Ronald Reagan.