As conservative editor Bill Kristol continues to waste time flipping through the phone book dialing up anyone who will answer to run against Trump, and as conservative columnist George Will eagerly attempts to generate headlines with his melodramatic announcement that he’s leaving the Republican party over Trump. I wonder if either of these allegedly intelligent thinkers, or if any of the supposedly principled “Never-Trumpers,” actually understand what it means to truly be a conservative. Let me politely enlighten Mr. Kristol and Mr. Will about one of the basic foundations of the political philosophy for which they both claim to pledge loyalty: free markets.

Conservatives believe that individuals should be empowered and given the freedom to make their own choices, and guess what, the people have spoken. And in this case, the Republican primary voters have chosen Trump as the Republican party’s nominee. It’s such a simple and obvious point that it seems insane it even needs to be defended, but Trump competed fairly in the free market of ideas and won. Be angry at Trump the individual all you want, but any attempts to deny the movement behind him their chosen nominee or efforts to sabotage the party’s chances in the general election are entirely anti-conservative in their implied need for individuals to be saved from their own foolish decisions.