Mona Charen is an author, opinion columnist, and seasoned journalist who has established herself as a shrewd conservative voice over the years. She is 68 years old and has seen controversy before. She supported traditional Republican ideals and frequently used her pen against liberals and progressives when working as a copywriter for First Lady Nancy Reagan in the Reagan White House in the 1980s.
Today, however, Charen has become something unexpected: a conservative who believes in Never Trump and is among the most vehement opponents of former President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Despite having strong conservative roots, her development has made her an unlikely ally of Democrats.
Charen contends that Trump’s involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein issue refutes MAGA’s final moral defence of backing him in a scathing piece that was published on September 10 in The Bulwark, a conservative anti-Trump publication. Charen believes that the disclosures highlight a fundamental conflict in Trumpism.
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The Flight 93 Election: MAGA’s Core Argument
Charen begins her case by analysing the reasoning MAGA supporters have been using to defend their support for Trump for almost ten years.
“At the heart of the case for Trump,” she states, “has always been the notion that, sure, he’s rough around the edges, but we have to put aside our piddling character concerns and just be glad that he is so strong, because the left presents such an existential threat to America that we cannot survive without Trump.”
The famous “Flight 93 election” essay, which made the argument that voting Trump was like storming the cockpit of a hijacked plane—risky but vital to avoid complete destruction—is where this framing originates. The alternative, according to this mindset, was the collapse of the country under liberal rule, regardless of Trump’s personal shortcomings.
Charen clarifies: “When you are drowning, you don’t question whether the man throwing you a life preserver is a decent person or not — you’re just grateful he’s there.”
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Trump’s Defense: Calling It a Hoax
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and other Trump supporters have called attempts to make the Department of Justice’s Epstein files public a “Democratic hoax.” For them, the controversy is just another witch hunt, another effort to destroy Trump and his movement.
Charen, however, draws attention to the obvious contradiction: All of MAGA’s rhetorical tools for supporting Trump have been based on moral superiority, especially the idea that Democrats are especially dangerous, corrupt, and involved in plots to exploit children.
The moral underpinning that Trump and his supporters profess to preserve has been weakened by their dismissal of Epstein’s allegations as a fake.
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MAGA’s Bargain With Trump’s Character
Charen doesn’t hold back when discussing MAGA members’ enduring readiness to ignore Trump’s shortcomings.
Her words, “They knew Trump was a louse,” “They knew he lied, betrayed his business partners and his wives, spread false rumours, played dirty, and did it all without a flicker of conscience.”
Charen claims that rather than defending Trump’s character, MAGA supporters said that Democrats were even worse. This reasoning saw them through a series of scandals, including Trump’s bullying, his constant deception, his involvement in the January 6 uprising, and his ongoing attacks on democratic institutions.
The argument was always the same: America needed a tough warrior to protect it from the left’s alleged existential threat.
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Epstein, QAnon, and the Collapse of a Moral Narrative
Protecting children was MAGA’s most vehement moral defence for many years. Conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and QAnon, which portrayed Democrats as complicit in extensive child-abuse plots, were welcomed by the movement.
The irony is noted by Charen: “Now, they find themselves defending Trump against the one sin that has given their movement its chief moral stature: child abuse.”
The Epstein affair goes right to the core of this story. The notion that MAGA is a holy war against child abuse crumbles under its own dishonesty if Trump is tarnished by his affiliation with Epstein.
According to Charen: “For ten years, MAGA and the majority of the GOP have justified every Trump atrocity by claiming that America needed him to stop a massive Democratic plot to harm defenceless children. However, Trump is the only influential person who has been tarnished by the Epstein disclosures. “We need a tough guy’ and ‘whataboutism’ are not enough to make this work.
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The “Woke” Excuse and Charen’s Rebuttal
Some conservatives, like Bill Maher and other commentators, have said that Republicans put up with Trump because they feel overwhelmed by the “woke” movement’s excesses. Even those who secretly despise Trump might hold onto him as a buffer against the overreach of the progressive movement.
Charen vehemently denies this defence. She maintains that the mistakes of the cultural left do not excuse granting unbridled authority to a guy who destroys democracy and calls into question the very principles that conservatives profess to support. She contends that it is no longer valid to say that Trump is a necessary evil in order to combat liberal excesses.
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Mona Charen’s criticism is a damning indictment of the Republican Party, not just of Trump. A large portion of the GOP has been tied to Trump for almost ten years, supporting him through scandals, impeachments, and uprisings.
According to Charen, the final fig leaf of moral defence is removed by the Epstein discoveries. How can MAGA’s founders now justify Trump’s association with the century’s most notorious child abuser if the organization’s stated goal was to shield children from exploitation?
The paradox can’t be sustained. A moral collapse has resulted from what started out as a political tactic.
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Conclusion:
In addition to being a critique, Mona Charen‘s piece in The Bulwark serves as a warning to conservatives. Trump’s followers used the argument that he was a vital bulwark against a dangerous and corrupt left for years to defend his actions. In the name of battling a bigger evil, they disapproved of his deception, his misuse of authority, and even his involvement in an attempted uprising.
Charen contends, however, that moral barrier has been breached by the Epstein case. MAGA can no longer justify Trump’s soiled affiliations while claiming the moral high ground on kid protection.
Conservatives like Charen face a difficult decision: either face the facts about Trump and restore their integrity, or keep on down a denial path that undermines their political legitimacy and moral credibility.
Trump’s most devoted supporters might not be persuaded by the Epstein disclosures, but they do highlight the conflict at the core of MAGA. Charen demonstrates that this circle cannot be squared by scapegoating or whataboutism.