For many leading conservatives, 'Never Trump' didn't mean never - The Boston Globe

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

62% : As Trump conquered the Republican Party, the party gradually remade itself in his image -- and high-ranking Republican officials found it in their interest to do likewise.
39% : Similarly, I have no trouble understanding that there are single-issue voters who find Trump unlikable but strongly supported him all the same because of his stand on the particular issue that matters most to them -- immigration, judicial appointments, Israel, trade, whatever.
35% : What explains it?The nearly universal self-justification for these reversals is that while Trump is surely a flawed man, he is a good leader and the nation needs him, and their previous hostility to him was misguided.
34% : Nor am I faulting erstwhile Republican critics who opposed Trump at first because they were backing a different candidate (or who were themselves among those candidates).
34% : When those who claimed to oppose Trump as a matter of principle switched sides, did it cost them anything to do so?
31% : Why?To be clear, I am not questioning any Republicans, prominent or not, who might have initially opposed Trump in the belief that he was not a viable candidate and then changed their minds when they realized differently.
31% : Much of this was purely cynical -- think of the Republican members of Congress who were ready to wash their hands of Trump immediately after the Capitol riot, only to rally around him when it was clear that his popularity among the Republican rank and file had not suffered.
27% : By the same token, I respect the many people who never liked Trump but held their noses to vote for him because they sincerely believed the alternative was worse.
25% : Individuals like the high-profile radio host Glenn Beck, for example, who in 2016 told his huge audience that Trump was "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity" and that opposing him was the only "moral, ethical choice."
18% : It has baffled me to see so many prominent opinion leaders and public intellectuals on the right -- men and women who used to call Trump out for his ugly character, odious words, compulsive lying, and reckless demagoguery -- eventually pledge him their troth.

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