In our latest Need to Know, Mona Charen and I talk about Election 2016 and related catastrophes. Despite all that talk, my fingers itch, and I would like to do some writing.

Trumpsters like to compare themselves to Brexiteers, understandably. In August, their candidate tweeted out, “They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!” But it occurs to me that they are like Remainers, in one important respect.

Remainers launched what their opponents called “Operation Fear.” They campaigned on fear. They forecast all sorts of doom, should voters opt to leave the EU. It was 24/7 scaremongering.

What do I hear from Trump and his army? “This is the last election we’ll ever have. It’s now or never for America. If you fail to elect Donald J. Trump, America is over.”

I have been against Hillary Clinton for 25 years. Have written and cried against her. Even questioned her once. (She looked at me like she could kill me.) I was against her when Donald Trump was funding her, praising her, and insisting that she be the trophy guest at his wedding, in the first pew.

Yet I think America could survive her. Maybe even more easily than it could survive him.

***

Character used to be a huge part of conservatism. “Character is king,” people said. “Character is destiny.”

This year, however, conservatives, many of them, turned their backs on character. Character was a luxury we could not afford, in these parlous times.

They also turned their backs on conservatism – a conservative worldview. “No box-checking,” they said. “This is no time for box-checking. No time for philosophical purity.”

What did that leave? Electability. Trump may not have character, and he may not be a conservative, but, by golly, he can win. He fights. He’s a winner. And he’s going to show the rest of you chumps how to win.

Romney was a loser. Too polite, too much a gentleman. He let the Democrats walk all over him. Not this time, not with our great orange brute.

Okay. How’s that working out for you? Feel like a winner?

Conservatives – again, many of them – sacrificed character and conservatism, and it looks like they won’t get the win, either. Hillary Clinton was very beatable this year. Is beatable. But with DJT?

Also, if you won with Trump, what would you win? A statist authoritarian whose mental and emotional problems make him a danger around the button? That’s the win?

Thanks.

***

A prediction: After the election, Trump talkers – Trump boosters, Trump advocates – will revert to their former role of conservative commissar. Pre-Trump, they were the ideological enforcers. They were always on the hunt for heretics. They scoured the land for infidelity and disobedience. If you veered one inch from conservative orthodoxy (as they defined it), you were consigned to darkness.

Everyone was a “RINO.” Remember that? Everyone was a tool of the “establishment.”

Then Trump came along. (A genuine RINO.) And it was, “Conservatism, conshmervatism. Hey, no box-checking, dude. Stop harshing my mellow. Dontcha wanna win? What are you, some kind of ideologue? Politics is not for the dogmatic, you know.”

Post-Trump, they will resume their former role, I’m afraid. Keep an eye on it.

***

Eric Cantor was considered insufficiently conservative for Congress. He was a RINO who had to go. Compared with Donald Trump, he is the reincarnation of Russell Kirk. Cantor has more conservatism in a follicle of his hair than Trump has in … than exists, probably, in all of Trump Tower.

***

All of my life, I’ve heard conservatives talk about virtue, family values, and morality. I don’t want to hear a peep from them on those things for the rest of my life. Not after seeing what they have done this cycle – covering for, excusing, papering over Donald J. Trump.

Once upon a time, Henry Hyde was my favorite politician. Indeed, he was pretty much my favorite person in public life. I used to say, “If I had to appoint someone president of the United States, I would appoint either Henry Hyde or Bill Bennett.”

I met Hyde once, in a hallway on the Hill. Gushed all over him.

During Lewinsky days, there was a very bad story about him and another man’s family. No need to go into details now. But it was pretty lousy. And I mentioned around the office that I felt sorry about Hyde.

I had always known that it was stupid to have heroes in politics. That mortals were mortals. That boys would be boys. “Put not your trust in princes.” “Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils.” Blah blah blah. But still: Hyde was kind of a blow.

A colleague of mine mocked me, for being a square. He said that it was ridiculous for my opinion of Hyde to be affected. Who’d I think I was, Cotton Mather? In answer, I said something like this:

We all get to pick what we value. What we admire, what we disdain. What we consider important, what we consider less so. We all have our priorities. I can’t pick for you, and you can’t pick for me. It’s an individual thing.

Many, many women have accused Trump of assaulting them, sexually. They seem credible to me. And we have Trump’s testimony: about what his m.o. is. The women’s testimony conforms to Trump’s own.

Either this matters or it doesn’t. Either this is a big deal or it isn’t. I can’t decide for you, and you can’t decide for me. It’s a matter of conscience, taste, etc.

Some conservatives are aghast. Some are blasé. Some are a little in between. I hear, “Yeah, I’m not too cool with sexual assault. I feel kind of bad for the women. But, you know, the Supreme Court. And Hillary. #NeverHillary. Sometimes you have to swallow a little assault, for the greater good.”

Oh, what a miserable year. For eons, the Left has said that the Right is a bunch of hypocrites. I always argued against it. I won’t anymore.

In my view, the “conservative movement” has forfeit its right to talk about morality or character in politics ever again.

***

The alliance between the Republican party and Putin’s Kremlin is a rather curious thing. The Russian strongman is the GOP’s best friend – doing all he can to elect the Republican nominee. He’s doing a lot more than Paul Ryan, for example.

But I caution Republicans against falling in love: Putin may be your friend for the moment, but he’s no friend of America, or of democracy.

It’s interesting to read Team Hillary’s e-mails. (Thanks, Vlad!) Some of them make me like Hillary better, frankly (or dislike her less). She is friendlier to trade in private than she is on the stump. But I was thinking not long ago: I wish Vlad would switch sides, just for a day or two. Because it would be a pleasure to read Team Trump’s e-mails: Corey, Ivanka, Manafort, Kellyanne, Eric, Donald Jr., Bannon, Hannity, Laura, Ann, Newt, the Donald himself …

That could be some juicy reading.

***

I learned a lot from this eye-opening piece by James Kirchick. It’s about Trump’s support on the left. There’s a lot of it, and it makes sense. Especially in the realm of foreign policy.

One of the things I learned from Jamie is that, in 2013, Trump praised Putin for knocking President Obama. What had gotten Vlad’s goat? Obama had spoken of America as an exceptional nation.

Interesting. Conservatives have long knocked Obama for not acknowledging or respecting America as an exceptional nation.

Trump was 100 percent with Putin. The term “American exceptionalism,” said Trump, is “very insulting, and Putin really put it to him about that.”

More Trump:

… if you’re in Russia, you don’t want to hear that America is exceptional. And if you’re in many other countries, whether it’s Germany or other places, you don’t want to hear about “American exceptionalism,” because you think you’re exceptional. So I can see that being very insulting to the world.

And that’s basically what Putin was saying, is that, you know, you use a term like “American exceptionalism,” and frankly, the way our country is being treated right now by Russia and Syria and lots of other places and with all the mistakes we’ve made over the years, like Iraq and so many others, it’s sort of a hard term to use. But other nations and other countries don’t want to hear about “American exceptionalism.” They’re insulted by it. And that’s what Putin was saying.

Very nice. And I can understand it from a poli-sci prof at Brown (in different language). But from the man who, three years later, would become the Republican presidential nominee?

The embrace of Donald J. Trump by American conservatives – millions and millions of them, intellectuals and rank ’n’ file – is one of the damnedest things I ever saw.

***

Is it dangerous for Trump to claim that the election is rigged? Well, it is certainly standard – standard for him. That’s the same thing he said during the primaries and caucuses, when he was losing ground. The elections are rigged, the system is rigged. Then he came back to win it all, of course – win the nomination.

Apparently, the idea of losing is so intolerable to him, he must claim he is cheated. He can never lose, you see; he can only be cheated. I believe this mindset is dangerous in a leader, but that’s a different discussion.

Back to my earlier question: Is it dangerous for Trump to claim that the election is rigged? Dangerous to our democracy? Well, I think of a wolf-crying problem. Sometimes, in some places, elections are rigged. And there may be some serious rigging in our future. (Just play with me here.) What will people say then? They could well mutter, or snort, “That’s what Trump said.”

The rigging of an election is a serious charge. You’d better have a leg to stand on.

***

I have some more questions: When Trump talks about international bankers and a dark plot against American sovereignty and all that – does he know what he is doing? Does he know the anti-Semitic baggage of such talk, or is he innocent of it?

When he said, earlier on, “America First,” did he know the history?

I don’t think so, really. I don’t think he’s anti-Semitic (though he certainly attracts that kind of support). I think he is simply ignorant and demagogic. But I don’t really know.

***

By the way, I have never really gotten a straight and satisfying answer on something: When Trump and his folk talk about “globalism,” what do they mean? Trade? Alliances? Something else? Does “globalism” play the role – the odorous role – that “cosmopolitanism” once did? WTF?

“America First” is posited against “globalism.” Trump and his spokesmen will often say, “We’re for America First, not globalism.” I wonder whether they know what they are saying.

***

I was thinking last week about poor John Edwards. He was too early. The bar is so much lower now. I guess Trump folk would say he was the victim of “moral preening.”

That’s what I often hear: that if you object to Trump’s behavior, you are “morally preening.”

***

One of his defenses against the sexual accusations against him is, I would never have, she’s far too ugly.

I imagine this has sway with some. And not with others.

***

You know who was really too early? Gary Hart. That ride on Monkey Business – it seems positively quaint. Autres temps, autres mœurs.

***

A final question for you: If Trump loses the election, how long before he is back in the Democratic party? Six months? Less? Before Inauguration Day? To ponder …