Bill Kristol, once a prominent architect of the Republican establishment and a leading neoconservative voice, has now declared that he is a Democrat.
The former editor of The Weekly Standard, long regarded as a flagship of Beltway conservatism, made his announcement with the kind of flourish that has characterized his media career. According to Western Journal, Kristol is best remembered for his omnipresence on cable news and his role in shaping the pre-Trump GOP consensus, a consensus that collapsed when grassroots conservatives rejected the old guard in favor of a populist insurgency led by Donald Trump.
That populist wave did more than merely unsettle Kristol; it seemed to trigger a political and psychological rupture. While many in the conservative establishment were wary of Trump in 2016, Kristol reacted as if the partys base had committed an unforgivable act of rebellion, and over the ensuing decade he transformed himself into a full-time NeverTrump activist who increasingly sounded less like a disaffected Republican and more like a standard-issue liberal commentator.
His formal break with the GOP came wrapped in lofty rhetoric that, on closer inspection, appears deeply incongruous with the modern Democratic Party he now embraces. Im pro-freedom, pro-law and order, pro-limited government, and pro-the Declaration and the Constitution, Kristol said in a post this past week. And so today Im a Democrat.
The dissonance between those stated principles and the actual platform of the Democratic Party was not lost on observers across the political spectrum. This, from pundit and U.K. Spectator writer Melissa Chen, may have summed up the fatuousness better than anyone has or could: her reaction underscored how implausible it is to reconcile Kristols professed small-government, constitutionalist ideals with a party increasingly defined by expansive bureaucracy, identity politics, and hostility to traditional institutions.
If one needs any explanation why this is risible, look at Zohran Warmth of Collectivism Mamdani, who not only got elected as a Democrat but seems to be the future face of the Democratic Party. Mamdani, a self-described socialist and champion of aggressive state intervention, hardly represents limited government or a restrained reading of the Constitution, yet this is the political movement Kristol now claims best reflects his values.
It is not as if Kristol has been fighting this leftward lurch; on the contrary, he has been enabling it. In fact, before he was officially Democrat, he was shilling for Mamdani: New York is a huge city. [Mamdani is] not going to destroy it, I dont think. Hes gonna set up five silly government-run grocery stores, I guess. I dont think he even will do that [inaudible]. And so theyll be fine, Kristol said.
Kristols conversion is part of a broader pattern among a certain class of Republican-aligned operatives and commentators who have found a new home and new relevance on the left. Its hardly like hes the only Republican neocon apparatchik whos decided to make their Democrat conversion official, as the media ecosystem has warmly welcomed these defectors as useful props in its narrative of a GOP supposedly captured by extremism.
George Conway, that carbuncle on the body politic who broke up his marriage because his wife committed wrongthink by helping Donald Trump win the presidency, is running for Congress as a Democrat. His trajectory mirrors Kristols: once a nominal conservative lawyer, now a darling of liberal media outlets eager to showcase Republicans who denounce their own party.
Jen Rubin, the longtime token conservative-ish writer at The Washington Post, came out even earlier in 2020, in a piece called NeverTrump becomes NeverRepublican. Her evolution from conservative columnist to reliable progressive voice was so complete that even left-leaning readers eventually stopped pretending she represented any meaningful right-of-center perspective.
NeverRepublican became NeverWaPo when she left the sinking ship in early 2025 to start a Substack with Norm Eisen called The Contrarian, aimed at the demographic who pine for the days of Nelson Rockefeller as the right. That project, like Kristols new partisan identity, appears tailored to a tiny sliver of affluent, nostalgic moderates who still imagine the GOP as a party run by and for Georgetown cocktail-circuit sensibilities.
They say narrowcasting is the future, so maybe the six people who actually care about the publication will really make some serious changes in the Republican Party from the Democratic side, but forced to wager on Kalshi on either that outcome, or whether the staff of The Contrarian could bioengineer pigs so they could fly, Id place every dollar on the latter proposition. The market for such ventures exists mostly in newsrooms and think tanks, not among the voters who now define the Republican base.
The reaction to Kristol was expected and on point. Many on the right saw his announcement not as a shocking twist but as the formal acknowledgment of a reality that had been obvious for years: his loyalties had long since shifted away from conservative voters and toward the liberal institutions that continued to give him a platform.
The answer: No, he doesnt remember. What he remembers is when he held court at whatever cable network he pleased, relaying whatever moderate establishment line had come across the email list that morning.
He tried all sorts of ways to sway the GOP back to his vision of the future, all with less than astounding results. He was one of several NeverTrump Republicans speaking at a much-ballyhooed, profoundly underdelivering summit of the tribe, including Kristol, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh.
Before the 2020 election, he teamed with (for Petes sake) Anthony Scaramucci to try and find an anti-Trump Republican to mount a serious challenge to Trump, then the incumbent president. Prospective candidates either didnt answer the phone or, if they were unlucky enough not to recognize the number before picking up, said they couldnt possibly run because they had to go wash their hair and take out the trash, thanks for calling, see you later!
And now he pretends that the Democrats, a party which embraces socialism and violence and annihilating institutions like the Supreme Court and Senate, is actually pro-freedom, pro-law and order, pro-limited government, and pro-the Declaration and the Constitution. That claim strains credulity when the partys loudest voices call for court-packing, abolishing the filibuster, defunding police, and expanding federal control over nearly every aspect of American life.
The only question is the same as with Liberace: Why pretend for so long? For conservatives who still believe in limited government, ordered liberty, and the constitutional framework the Founders designed, Kristols belated confession simply clarifies what his words and alliances had already revealed that his fight was never truly with Trump alone, but with the voters who chose a different direction than the one he and his fellow establishment figures tried, and failed, to impose.
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