It is a testament to the combination of spinelessness on the part of party elders, complicity from the conservative media complex, and excessive cleverness by Republican presidential campaigns that we are today assigning fault for Donald Trump’s rise even before the first votes are cast. The pervasive waft of resignation pollutes the air around the hollowed out carcass that we occasionally refer to as the Republican “establishment,” for want of a more descriptive term. Rather than resist the hijacking of conservatism with any unity or conviction, Republicans are busily casting about for someone to blame. There is plenty of responsibility go around, but it is not Republicans’ alone.

On Thursday night, National Review published a much-anticipated symposium featuring a variety of conservative intellectuals and columnists, including COMMENTARY’s own John Podhoretz, rallying the conservative movement against Donald Trump. That center-right political magazine accompanied this broadside with its own editorial asserting that the conservative movement will be all but crushed if Trump were to secure the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. It was a welcome counter to the laughable narrative promoted by so many trusted conservative media outlets that the erstwhile pro-choice, semi-isolationist, abuser of public domain is conservatism’s last best hope.