Vainglorious is a rich, multi-syllabic word that actually describes something well, unlike the similar big words the left uses to confuse and obscure their social justice agenda, such as intersectionality. Vainglorious means to be boastfully vain and proud of oneself, or ostentatious. Shuffle the word a bit and find that it describes someone gloriously vain.

What a great term to describe NeverTrumpers! They are smug in the certainty and righteousness of opposing President Donald Trump and his agenda. They happily point it out every chance they get, whether on a CNN panel or on Twitter, as they look down their proud beaks on those who support Trump.

Never mind that most NeverTrumpers are or were members of the Republican Party, and that most Trump supporters are Republican. They view Trump and his fans as lepers, unworthy to breathe the same rarefied air as the woke NeverTrumpers who see through the Trumpian smoke and mirrors.

Trump is a charlatan, they say, destroying the conservative movement and the Republican Party. This must mean that everything NeverTrumpers have been advocating for on the pages of the late Weekly Standard or the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, like conservative judges, lower taxes, fewer regulations, immigration reform, better international trade deals, and fewer foreign military entanglements, are part of the charade. Perhaps it has all been talk, without principle or conviction.

NeverTrumpers have the closest thing to their hero Ronald Reagan in a generation and couldn’t be more unhappy. You know the names – Bill Kristol, Max Boot, George Will, Bret Stephens, Jennifer Rubin, and Peggy Noonan to name a few. Add to that list Michael Gerson, a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration, a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a current Washington Post columnist. He has the perfect pedigree as a Washington, DC establishment insider.

His recent column asked, “Why should a Republican stay in a party that has gone off the moral rails?” Let’s unpack his piece.

He asks, “Would being a GOP legislator in the Trump era involve too many sacrifices of principle?” He goes on to say, “And it is not possible in much of the country for a Republican to run and win as an anti-Trump candidate. Even Mitt Romney had to pull back from his criticisms of President Trump to win a Senate seat.”

Poor Mitt Romney, who had to run as a self-described “severely conservative” governor of Massachusetts in order to secure the GOP nomination in 2012, only to choke and squander a winnable election, giving America a second term of Barack Obama. How did that work out for conservative principles?

Romney’s predecessor, another presidential loser, John McCain, also had a habit of running as a conservative and governing as anything but. McCain also had a prominent role in the Russian collusion hoax, passing the phony dossier to the FBI. Those two NeverTrump Republicans, in the eyes of the NeverTrumpers, were principled, despite being losers and relegated to the back bench of national politics.

Instead their “principled” presidential runs culminated in legalized post-birth abortion, given a standing ovation in New York after Governor Andrew Cuomo signed infanticide into law. Virginia Governor “Coonman” Northam defended infanticide with nary a peep from the GOP smart set about which political party has “gone off the moral rails.”

What other principles have been sacrificed? Elementary school children are encouraged to cross dress and learn about the 70 something genders, which they are encouraged to explore. Any objection from NeverTrumpers? Who has “gone off the moral rails”?

Religious freedom is tossed out the window if one happens to be a Christian baker, standing on principle, not creating a same-sex wedding cake. Yet if a Muslim baker chose to do the same, and anyone dared criticize this, they would be labeled a racist and hater. Any critic’s freedom of speech on social media platforms would disappear, as a matter of principle. Yet NeverTrumpers think it’s Trump who has “gone off the moral rails.”

The principle of a sovereign nation with a border is racist and xenophobic, while giving illegal immigrants US taxpayer dollars and societal advantages are principles seemingly acceptable to the NeverTrumpers. Allowing criminal aliens free run of our cities, committing murder and mayhem, is acceptable based on some principle of tolerance or diversity. Yet it’s Trump who has “gone off the moral rails.”

The principle of a fair and honest election has been replaced by the outgoing administration weaponizing its intelligence and judicial agencies to subvert the will of the people with little pushback from NeverTrumpers. The principle of allowing “we the people” to select their leaders and expect such leaders to follow the will of the people is a principle alien to the elites. Yep, Trump is the one “off the moral rails.”

Donald Trump is the only one in the Republican Party pushing back against America’s slide into the abyss of socialism or worse. He has a simple principle, “Make America Great Again,” unambiguous and without nuance. None of the other 17 GOP candidates could have beaten the Obama-Clinton machine and withstood the relentless daily media onslaught every day of their presidency.

It’s the Republican Party that has tossed principle to the wind and has “gone off the moral rails.” Despite controlling Congress for two years, they accomplished little other than a corporate tax cut. Obamacare wasn’t repealed, Planned Parenthood was funded, and the border wasn’t secured, despite principled campaign promises to the contrary.

Without candidate Trump, we would have had another President Clinton, the outcome most of the NeverTrump Republicans preferred. How exactly would that have advanced the “principles” they purportedly support?

Imagine if NeverTrumpers put aside their slights for their chosen candidate, whether Jeb! or the mailman’s son, not winning the nomination, and got behind their party’s nominee? Suppose Senator McCain had chosen to work with his president rather than undermining him at every turn?

Whether or not they liked Trump’s style, his MAGA principles were things we have been reading about in the National Review for decades and worthy of full-on support. So much more could have been accomplished. It’s a miracle Trump did what he did in his first two years with so few friends and supporters in Washington, DC.

Instead the vainglorious NeverTrumpers have thrown their “principles” to the wind, crossing enemy lines to join the left in opposing the last and only hope of keeping conservative ideas alive, ideas that NeverTrumpers once solidly stood behind. Who has really “gone off the moral rails”? Trump or phony NeverTrump Republicans?

They are beyond despicable. They are throwing the game because they aren’t on the starting team, preferring to let the other team win to protect their bruised egos. Now they are in a political wasteland. Trump Republicans want nothing to do with them. Neither do the far-left Democrats.

Their only home is on the op-ed pages of the Washington Post or CNN panel discussions. The glory of it, all for their vanity.

Photo: Michael Gerson as White House speechwriter (official White House photo)

Brian C. Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn and Twitter.