For over a year now, people have been yelling at me “You don’t get it!” when it comes to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And while I am certainly open to the claim that I’m not that bright, I do think I get it. What drives a lot of friends and (former) fans crazy is that I don’t share their feelings — and that, in turn, feels to them like betrayal. And I get that, too. I’ve felt the same thing about conservative writers — many of them friends or former friends — who came to unpopular conclusions about this or that, and I’ve had similar feelings of betrayal, resentment, and, to use a word that would make total sense in German, notgettingitness.

I think this explains why so many people scream at me with Sam Kinison–like belligerence that I go ahead and endorse “my candidate,” Hillary Clinton. It’s a manifestation of the tribal, bubble-thinking that says if you’re not part of the solution then you’re part of the problem, or “if you’re not with me you must be with them.”

I get the arguments for why I must, absolutely must, vote for Donald Trump. And I think some of them are fairly sound. I also get the arguments that I must, absolutely must, endorse Donald Trump. I just don’t find any of them very persuasive. Because, as I’ve said a million times now, I’m not going to let that guy turn me into a lying hack. I want no ownership of him, now or ever. The same goes for Hillary Clinton, which is why you can count me among the Brothers McMullin.

But there’s no need to recycle arguments I’ve made countless times already. Still, I think it’s worth pointing out that many of the intellectuals and writers shouting about the “Beltway Bubble!” live in their own bubbles too. I love the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College, but if you don’t think there’s a bubble surrounding those Ivory Towers, you don’t know why we have the term “Ivory Tower” in the first place.