The Republican establishment, which includes people like Rich Lowry of National Review and Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal, really, really don’t like Trump.

It’s a matter of chivalry. 

Consider the analogy to the way European nobles and the papacy objected to Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II’s performance on the Sixth Crusade.

Unlike a galaxy of other kings and other crusaders, he regained Jerusalem, access to the sea, and a host of towns in the Holy Land, but his abiding sin was that he went about it in all the wrong way.  What crusaders should do in the eyes of that age’s establishment was throw twenty thousand men to death in a huge battle with the Mohammedans, spend years laying siege to various cities, massacre the infidels found behind the lines, and if defeated well, just accept that as the price of doing things the way they should be done.  Instead, Frederick outraged public opinion by ignoring the best political advice, even excommunication, and cut a deal with the Mohammedans.

Analogously, Trump outrageously ignores the normal conservative obsequies.  The fact that he has the best chance since Reagan of accomplishing some major conservative goals is beside the point.  He’s going about it in all the wrong way, and if he’s successful, they’ll never stop hating him for that.

Sigh.

Richard F. Miniter is the author of The Things I Want Most, Random House, BDD.  See it Here.  He lives and writes in the colonial-era hamlet of Stone Ridge, New York; blogs here; and can also be reached at miniterhome@gmail.com.