When the Never Trump industry profits, America loses

OPINION:

Former President Donald Trump will go down in history as one of America’s most successful entrepreneurs. Ironically, one of the most profitable enterprises he has spawned is a hydra-headed Never Trump industry dedicated to his own destruction.

This Never Trump industry took root after then-candidate Trump rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015 with his wife, Melania.

There, Mr. Trump opened up with both populist barrels on a bevy of corporate interests responsible for offshoring American jobs to the sweatshops of China; importing cheap, illegal immigrant labor from a cartel-infested Mexico, and supporting the debilitating prosecution of endless wars sacrificing the lives and limbs of America’s bravest.

Once Mr. Trump’s gauntlet was thrown down, this bevy of corporate elites — from Silicon Valley and Wall Street to America’s biggest multinational corporations — went on high alert. Mr. Trump’s Main Street policies would cost them hundreds of billions of profits annually, which could never be tolerated.

Today, these globalist elites form the financial bedrock of the Never Trump industry. They provide the massive campaign contributions that keep America’s elected politicians in uniparty line, the ad revenue that fuels the hate, venom and disinformation of the Never Trump corporate media, and the dark money funding of a mongrel horde of political consultants, pollsters and candidates working to ensure Mr. Trump will never again be president.

On the left, CNN and MSNBC are the most prominent faces of the Never Trump media — although ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS more than carry their vitriolic weight. Here, CNN best reveals the underlying business model.

Under Jeff Zucker, CNN made a profit-motivated decision early on to carpet-bomb Mr. Trump on a daily basis. Sooner than most, Mr. Zucker understood Mr. Trump’s personality would whip the left into a frenzy. That would mean pure ratings gold and significantly higher ad revenue.

On the right, Fox News offers a similar profit-motivated story. The poster children — or sacrificial lambs — here are the ultra-MAGA former Fox News hosts Lou Dobbs and Tucker Carlson.

Messrs. Dobbs and Carlson had high ratings, but Rupert Murdoch’s network couldn’t fully cash in because of the ad boycotts of the Never Trump corporate world. So Lou and Tucker had to go.

Of course, in this new Never Trump makeover, a dwindling Fox audience is now saddled with a lineup of the over-the-hill Brian Kilmeade and Laura Ingraham and bland, blow-dried company men such as Bret Baier and John Roberts all too willing — nay, eager — to pimp the Never Trump line.

Today, the biggest Never Trump teat both CNN and Fox suck on — along with the mainstream media — is Big Pharma. As the White House’s manufacturing czar, I worked hard at Mr. Trump’s direction to bring our perilously fragile pharmaceutical supply chains home.

At every turn, I would bump into recalcitrant pharmaceutical executives resisting long-overdue Trumpian changes. Not for nothing, Big Pharma spent more money on Trump attack ads in the 2020 election than any other industry — and Pfizer, in particular, has been handsomely rewarded in return by the Biden regime.

Beyond the media, the Never Trump industry is also populated by a bevy of profit- and fame-seeking entrepreneurs in search of million-dollar book deals and lucrative TV news gigs. These former Trump administration officials go by names like John Bolton, William Barr, Mick Mulvaney, Kayleigh McEnany, Alyssa Farah, Stephanie Grisham, Olivia Troye and Larry Kudlow.

Each is profiting in their grift as Trump bashers. They are enabled not just by the Never Trump news channels but also by pinnacle publishers like Simon and Schuster and HarperCollins, whose executives know better than most how to make a Never Trump buck when the knives and claws come out.

As for the Never Trump kamikaze candidates — the Chris Christies, Nikki Haleys and Mike Pences of this Republican primary cycle — know they have zero chance of winning the presidential nomination. Yet each understands their Never Trump screeds offer an express train to celebrity and fortune of a different kind.

Lastly, political consultants and pollsters are working overtime in their dens of skewed question iniquity to throw stink on Mr. Trump and misdirect voters into thinking he is vulnerable. These mercenaries are always big winners because they win even if their candidate loses.

As a case in point, Guernsey cows have been milked far less than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Trump stalking mule, is being milked by this consultant/pollster class.

Ultimately, to understand this Never Trump industry is to understand much of what you see and read in the American media. To know this story is not to love it.

When the Never Trump industry profits, America loses.

• Peter Navarro served in the Trump White House as manufacturing czar and chief China strategist. This column originally appeared at www.peternavarro.substack.com.