Winston Churchill understood that in times of national emergency, it was imperative to forge alliances with anyone willing to help \u2013 no matter how odious those allies might be. As the British prime minister famously declared in 1941, \u201cIf Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.\u201d<\/p>\n
In politics, as in international warfare, you win by addition, not subtraction. You win by welcoming anyone who wants to join the ranks. That\u2019s how successful coalitions are built. But it\u2019s amazing how so many litmus-test Democrats seem impervious to reality.<\/p>\n
The other day, Oliver Willis, a senior writer at the liberal media website ShareBlue, tweeted his disdain for three prominent anti-Trump Republicans: ex-GOP congressman Joe Walsh, and conservative commentators Bill Kristol and David Frum, all of whom have signaled their willingness to make common cause with Democrats.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe Walsh isn\u2019t good. Bill Kristol isn\u2019t good. David Frum isn\u2019t good. These people are not worthy allies,\u201d Willis wrote. \u201cThey\u2019re working to undermine what is good. They\u2019re just embarrassed at Trump for saying the BS out loud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Willis was applauded by many in the lefty Twitterverse. But prominent Trump critics on the right \u2013 including George Conway, Max Boot, George Will, and Peter Wehner \u2013 give voice to the restiveness within Republican-friendly ranks. According to recent polling, it appears a sizable number of reality-based Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are loath to vote for Trump again \u2013 not necessarily because they now oppose him on policy, but because his tweets and reckless antics have simply exhausted them.<\/p>\n
For instance, Tom Nichols is a Republican who teaches at the U.S. Naval War College who is begging for any reason to vote Democratic in 2020. He wrote last Thursday: \u201cI don\u2019t care if Sen. Elizabeth Warren is a mendacious Massachusetts liberal. She could tell me that she\u2019s going to make me wear waffles as underpants and I\u2019ll vote for her \u2026 I don\u2019t care if Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is a muddle-headed socialist from a rural class-warfare state \u2026 He could tell me he\u2019s going to tax used kitty litter and I\u2019ll vote for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why? Because Nichols is fed up with Trump\u2019s \u201ccompulsive lying, fantastic and easily refuted claims, base insults, and bizarre public meltdowns \u2026 It is a sign of how low we have fallen as a nation that \u2018rational\u2019 and \u2018not compromised by an enemy\u2019 are now my only two requirements for the office of the president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Boot, an ex-foreign policy adviser to John McCain and Mitt Romney, is rooting for a blue victory. Earlier this month, he pleaded: \u201cDon\u2019t mess this up, Democrats. To preserve American democracy, we need to get rid of Trump. Then we can return to debating our normal policy differences.\u201d<\/p>\n
But because these people have toiled for the red team \u2013 George Conway (who calls Trump \u201ca sociopath\u201d) helped investigate Bill Clinton\u2019s sex history during the 1990s, and Bill Kristol was a cheerleader for George W. Bush\u2019s Iraq war \u2013 they\u2019re deemed to be unacceptable allies in 2019. As one liberal magazine, The Nation, contended recently, \u201cThey\u2019ve had their day. Democrats don\u2019t need their votes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Really? If I\u2019ve learned anything while covering national politics for the last 30 years, it\u2019s the axiom that a campaign or a party needs all the votes it can possibly get. That\u2019s not exactly rocket science. And fortunately, during that Twitter spat the other day, some Democrats seemed to get it.<\/p>\n
Neera Tanden, a former Hillary Clinton advisor who now runs the Center for American Progress, wrote, \u201cOur democracy is under siege. Make allies wherever you can. We can disagree again when Trump is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Bennett, a former congressional staffer, added: \u201cThe enemy of my enemy is my friend, at least while our mutual enemy is still a threat. Maybe we should just graciously accept the help b\/c they can speak to people who won\u2019t listen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or as the old saying goes, \u201cPolitics makes strange bedfellows.\u201d That\u2019s still true \u2013 unless purist Democrats spurn the Republican migrants by building a wall.<\/p>\n
Dick Polman is the national political columnist at WHYY in Philadelphia and a \u201cWriter in Residence\u201d at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n