Though there’s still time to stop him, it’s now looking increasingly likely that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. Some conservatives, such as Erick Erickson and my colleague Tim Carney have outlined reasons why they could never vote for him, so I thought it would be worth spelling out why I couldn’t – even in a general election against Hillary Clinton. If any Trump fans say to me, “Well, you people in the Establishment forced the likes of Mitt Romney and John McCain on us, and said we had to hold our noses and vote for them, now it’s your turn to hold your noses” – you’re barking up the wrong tree. In 2012, after Romney was nominated, I wrote an ebook in which I argued that conservatives shouldn’t reflexively rally around him as the nominee – instead I encouraged them to follow their consciences. Without further delay, here are my reasons (in no particular order) why I would vote for a third party conservative if any such candidate emerges, or otherwise stay home if Trump is the nominee. This list will be updated as more reasons come to me.

1. Trump has no actual political record, but his previous political persona is liberal

Typically, a major function of primaries is spent exploring the candidates’ records and past statements and comparing them against what they’re saying on the campaign trail. The reason is that politicians will say anything to get elected, so whatever they say during the campaign season is among the least important in judging how genuine or committed they are to principles. In Trump’s case, he has neither a governing record nor a voting record. So all we have to go on are his past statements. And he has a history of taking extreme liberal positions on issues of core importance to conservatives such as myself, as outlined below, on top of his history of donations to Democrats.