What sites are popular, and what sites are plummeting?

Director Blue has Alexa graphs that show huge spikes in viewership at sites like Drudge, Breitbart, and Conservative Treehouse, and huge downturns in visitors to National Review, The Weekly Standard, and redstate.com. Read more here.

Which principles are the most important?

At National Review Dennis Prager writes about #NeverTrumpers and #NeverHillaryers:

One side seeks to undo just about every founding principle that made America exceptional. Important examples include small and limited government; preservation of the power of the states to serve as political and social laboratories; a belief in individual responsibility; a society rooted in Judeo-Christian morality — meaning a society composed of people most of whom affirm God and Bible-based moral teachings; and a deep sense of a unifying national American identity and destiny. The Left is successfully undoing every one of those founding principles.

for the first time in American history, a man calling himself a socialist won the great majority of young people’s votes in the Democratic presidential primaries. Senator Bernie Sanders’s new political movement is accurately named “Our Revolution.” But for conservatives, “our revolution” occurred in 1776. So the Left is in fact leading a counter-revolution.

Therefore, with another four years of Democrat-Left rule — meaning a nearly permanent left-wing Supreme Court and left-wing judges controlling lower courts; the further erosion of federalism; an exponential growth in the power of the federal government; further leftist control of education; and the de-Americanizing of America in part by effectively eliminating its borders, in part by substituting multiculturalism for American identity, and in part by giving millions of illegal immigrants citizenship — America will not be America.

We conservatives who will vote for Trump understand that he is the only vehicle we have to prevent this. We recognize that though there are some fine individuals who hold left-wing views, Leftism is a terminal cancer in the American bloodstream and soul. So our first and greatest principle is to destroy this cancer before it destroys us. We therefore see voting for Donald Trump as political chemotherapy needed to prevent our demise. And at this time, that is, by far, the greatest principle.

Read more here.

We only have two choices!

Bookworm writes,

I’m deeply unhappy about the #NeverTrumpers and that’s for a personal reason. I have been for years a very big fan of many of the #NeverTrumpers, especially the writers at National Review. I haven’t always agreed with them (e.g., I wasn’t a Mitt Romney fan, but accepted him once he won the primary), but I deeply admire their intelligence, their thoughtfulness, the breadth and depth of their knowledge, their committed conservativism, their strong principles, and their uniformly excellent writing.

Indeed, admiring them as I did, it troubled me a great deal when a few months ago I realized that I would have to part ways with them. Did I dare to strike out on my own path when such highly regarded people were assuring me it was (and is) the road to perdition?

Bookworm then mentions my three favorite writers at National Review,

Even at National Review, though, people are beginning to accept that Trump is our guy, no matter how much we wish he were not. Dennis Prager wrote a wonderful pro-Trump column which said thoughtfully and elegantly what I’ve been saying in my ragged, scattershot fashion for months now: Trump is better than Hillary and, when there’s a binary election, patriots must choose the least bad option.

Likewise, Victor Davis Hanson, while trying to avoid endorsing Trump cannot help but savage Clinton. He’s too intellectually honest to pretend that throwing the election her way will be anything but a disaster.

Even Andrew McCarthy, once a staunch Trump foe, has come to realize that, when it comes to national security, reasonable people can work with Trump — and he’s better than Hillary.

Lord knows, at my own little bully pulpit, one that reaches only thousands, not tens or even hundreds of thousands, I wrote enough scathing indictments against Trump. During the primaries, he was a political monster when compared to Walker or Cruz or Rubio. But the primaries are over and now Trump is my monster. Instead of being scary, Trump has become endearing and cuddly. This election has been my own personal version of Monsters, Inc., with Trump no longer the killer under the bed but, instead, the hero who saves the day.

Given what both Shirky and Walsh say, it’s time for the #NeverTrumpers to have their own Monsters, Inc. moment. Guys and gals, stop screaming every time you see Trump and learn to appreciate his virtues, laugh at his wacky sense of humor, and line up behind him because, while he’s not a real monster, the monsters are out there and Hillary wants to let them in.

Read more here.

Anti-Trump conservatives who say they’re standing on principle are chauffeuring Hillary Clinton to the White House.

Of all places, National Review has an article by Deroy Murdock stating that

Anti-Trump conservatives who say they’re standing on principle are chauffeuring Hillary Clinton to the White House.

...on policy issues and political judgments, Trump has done the Right thing — only to hear catcalls from the very conservatives who should welcome his major strides in their direction. Start with Trump’s most important choice: his pick for vice president.

As the person who would serve a breath from the presidency, Trump could have tapped a blowhard governor who barely has improved the Garden State. Thankfully, Chris Christie remains trapped in Trenton. Trump could have recruited Senator Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), a milquetoast moderate whose convoluted legislative strategy against President Obama’s dreadful nuclear deal with Iran made it virtually unstoppable.

Instead, Trump selected Governor Mike Pence. The Indiana Republican was the Right’s True North in Congress. He earned a 99 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union. This darling of the pro-market Club for Growth repeatedly cut taxes as governor and resuscitated the Hoosier State’s economy. This socially conservative economic libertarian unites the GOP’s twin wings.

Recognizing that the Supreme Court has devolved into America’s election-free über-legislature, Trump unveiled eleven prospective justices. The conservative Heritage Foundation recommended several of these stalwart constitutionalists. They all are affiliated with the Federalist Society, the Vatican of rightist jurisprudence. Confirming his originalist intent, Trump said Tuesday on Hannity that he wants nominees “as close to Justice Scalia as we can get.”

Trump’s foes moaned that he had raised too few donations to battle the magnificently funded Duchess of Chappaqua. And then, in July, Trump collected a competitive $80 million, averaging $69 per contribution, versus Clinton’s $90 million, averaging $44.

Trump on Monday calmly delivered a serious, focused speech to the Detroit Economic Club. With the very significant exception of its trade-policy language, Trump’s address could have been written by Bill Kristol, Charles Murray, or any other conservative thinker now sticking red-hot needles into his Donald Trump voodoo doll. Declaring “We will Make America Grow Again,” Trump passionately tied Clinton’s left-wing faith to Detroit’s (and America’s) economic disease and then prescribed nearly every major conservative economic reform.

Trump would: Simplify today’s seven-tiered tax structure (with a top rate of 39.6 percent), down to three (maximum: 33).

Chop corporate taxes from a crippling 35 percent — the developed world’s highest rate — to a refreshing 15.

Bury the Death Tax. Said Trump: “It’s just plain wrong.”

“Repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare,” Trump proposed, “saving another 2 million American jobs.”

Impose a moratorium on new regulations until this listless economy rebounds.

Order Washington bureaucrats to identify rules that “are not necessary, do not improve public safety, and which needlessly kill jobs,” Trump said. “Those regulations will be eliminated.”

Stop the VA’s fatal abuse of America’s veterans and help them find dignified medical care outside this sadistic, corrupt bureaucracy.

Terminate Obama-Clinton’s job-incinerating War on Coal.

Build the Keystone Pipeline.
For oil and gas: Drill, baby, drill.

Clinton “supports the education policies that deny your students choice, freedom, and opportunity,” Trump said in Detroit. “Our education reforms will help parents send their kids to a school of their choice.”

Rather than encourage Trump — whose victory could secure these and other conservative goals after 16 years of molar-grinding Bush-Obama statism — the Never Trump crowd slaps away his extended hand.

These malcontents should help Trump develop the best conservative ideas and present them to the voters as attractively as possible. Supply-side heavyweights Arthur Laffer, Larry Kudlow, and Steve Moore helped craft Trump’s economic proposal. The man who Never Trumpniks say “never listens” heeded these free-marketeers on taxes and the Heritage Foundation on judges. Conservative Trump haters should do something productive: Offer the GOP nominee issues and ideas he can use to win.

Read more here.

What have conservatives learned from this Trump thing?

Kurt Schlicter at Town Hall is hearing nonsense from

people horrified at Trump and, by extension, the GOP voters who nominated him fair and square. Can we really blame them for voting for the one guy who actually paid attention to what they were saying?

Did we listen about illegal immigration? Heck, illegal immigration is just wonderful for us. We get cheaper restaurant food, cheaper houses, cheaper maids, and if we own companies we get cheaper workers. So what’s not to love, right? Except maybe you didn’t go to a university and wanted to work with your hands and found that you can’t get a job because all the companies are hiring cheap illegal alien workers. Or your truck got hit by an uninsured illegal. Or your daughter got killed by an illegal who should have been deported. Well, if you have concerns about these things, clearly you’re a racist.

...we’re stunned that our voters have failed to embrace our innovative two-prong approach of ignoring their grievances while heaping abuse upon them?

...And did we listen when our base asked the establishment to show some fighting spirit? Or are we driven to effectively vote for Hillary because somebody scandalized out tender sensibilities by using the verb “schlonged?” Our base demanded someone who wouldn’t be intimidated, who would fight. Instead, the establishment was dead set on dumping a steaming pile of Jeb on our collective lawn, the same durrwood you can watch on YouTube hanging a medal around Hillary Clinton's wrinkled neck. That pompous geebo can’t even take his own damn side in a fight; why is anyone shocked that our voters saw he would never take theirs?

...“Gosh,” we tell ourselves. “These people can’t even see what’s in their own best interest.” Except maybe they don’t like what they see. Maybe it’s because they decided we aren’t worth listening to. Maybe they don’t like us conservatives. And maybe we better figure out how to fix that instead of whining.

Read more here.

#NeverTrump forces are losing.

David Wasserman writes at Five Thirty Eight,

Here’s my gut takeaway from tonight’s primaries: It’s more difficult to see how Trump DOESN’T get to 1,237 delegates from here. He’s beating Cruz in red states, and he’s likely to beat Kasich in future blue states. Most of the delegates at stake from here on out will come from winner-take-all states. Whether #NeverTrump forces realize it or not, they are losing.