PHILADELPHIA — Free markets, free trade and defending democracy, at home and abroad: that’s John Conway’s ideal version of the United States, led by the Republican Party. In 2024, it’s also a vision far removed from reality, former President Donald Trump’s conquest of the GOP having been fully actualized, his party critics long since replaced by members of his family and others more loyal to him than the principles, however romanticized, of traditional conservatism.
Conway, director of strategy for the group Republican Voters Against Trump, is fully aware of that. He just doesn’t think that he and other conservatives should accept their party being taken over by a 78-year-old with a dubious grasp on what it takes to be a leader — “a disgusting character who doesn’t represent the best of America” — and a record of putting his own interests ahead of the republic.
