Trump’s presidency has desiccated the conservative movement

As President Trump’s second term limps along, it’s beginning to look like “everything Trump touches dies” isn’t so much a snarky slogan as it is a field report.

Take the pro-life movement. Here was one of the great unlikely marriages in modern politics: earnest, churchgoing activists linking arms with a casino-owning, thrice-married Stormy Daniels-dating real estate developer. What could possibly go wrong?

It actually worked — for a while. The alliance helped elect Trump, and his subsequent Supreme Court picks helped overturn Roe v. Wade, which had been the movement’s white whale for decades.

Enter Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and formerly one of Trump’s more reliable supporters. She once called Trump “the most pro-life President in history.” Now she’s out there saying, “Trump is the problem.” 

Not “a problem.” Not “part of the problem.” “The problem.”

She’s not wrong to notice that, post-Roe, things haven’t gone according to plan. Abortion rates are rising. Dangerous abortion pills are flooding mailboxes, and Trump’s FDA even approved a generic version of the abortion pill mifepristone.

Tired of all the winning, yet?

This was not entirely unpredictable — nor is it new. In 2022, columnist David French warned that under Trump, “the culture of life lost ground.” Then, in 2024, French observed that Trump’s “follow your heart” abortion advice was “the most pro-choice position a Republican presidential candidate has taken since at least Gerald Ford.”

Still, kudos to Dannenfelser for coming to terms with reality. But here’s the thing: Her critique isn’t merely about her socially conservative wing of the conservative movement. It is about a Faustian bargain in which the entire conservative movement traded long-term credibility for short-term gains (and survival).

It is worth taking a moment to recall that there was a time — not all that........

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