What I’ve witnessed with the rise of Donald Trump as a serious presidential contender is a number of commentators (not just on Fox, but across the conservative media spectrum) suddenly shelving their long-stated principles, in order to campaign for a candidate who outright rejects those principles. They’ve coddled Trump. They’ve apologized for him. They’ve made unbelievable allowances for him that they have made for no one else, and it has been the height of hypocrisy.

In many ways, the exodus mirrors the frustrations felt by the conservative movement as a whole. As more and more Republican voters throw in with Trump, based almost entirely on his persona, conservatives are losing their voice. We’re somehow being lumped in with “the establishment”, and are being called upon to suck it up and pledge our allegiance to Trump if he wins the Republican nomination…as if it’s somehow our patriotic duty to so.

But it isn’t our duty. Conservatives like me, who look at Donald Trump and see an unprincipled charlatan who doesn’t even minimally share our belief system, aren’t part of any “establishment.” To insist that we are, and that we must somehow now atone for our sins by jumping aboard the “Trump Train,” is ludicrous. It’s insulting.