Thanks for the feedback, James.

Yes, some conservatives are guilty of blatant hypocrisy. These are probably thick support strategists (strategy 1), for the most part. However, we should be careful not to assume that those who hold to a thin support strategy, with a floating threshold (strategy 3), are guilty of this sort of hypocrisy.

An interesting example for you to consider might be Andrew Klavan, a conservative writer and pundit who has a podcast for Daily Wire. He was critical of Trump during the primaries (cf. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsHUPqhAGrk), but supported him during the general. He’s a typical candidate for who I have in mind in regards to strategy 3 — though he has grown a bit too pro-Trump for my tastes.

He dismisses Trump’s sexual scandals in the way you lament, but he also doesn’t appear to be guilty of any hypocrisy since he has said — to my recollection — the same about Clinton.

This isn’t to say that no one in strategy 3 could be guilty of hypocrisy. Maybe some are. My first draft of this paper focused on whether one could extend David French’s critique of evangelicals in strategy 1 to those in strategy 3. I attempted to build the argument and then rebut it, but I changed the focus slightly after Ta-Nehisi Coates’ piece. Suffice it to say, I don’t think there is any sweeping case to made against anyone holding to strategy 3, based on the sort of criticisms French makes.