The following is an excerpt from Max Boot's book, The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right., published by Liveright in October 2018.

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On Election Day 2016, I knew that I would awaken to a nightmare. My America had become Trump’s America. My Republican Party had become Trump’s party. My conservative movement had become Trump’s movement.

The first thing I did the next morning—the dawn of what I felt was a new annus horribilis—was to go online and change my voter registration. I had been a Republican since turning eighteen just before the 1988 presidential election. Now, at the age of forty-seven, I became an independent. Politics is a team sport. Suddenly I was without a team. I was politically homeless. In an instant I felt alienated from some of my oldest friends and fellow travelers—conservatives with whom I had been in one fight after another over the past quarter-century.

How was it possible that 90 percent of Republicans had supported a charlatan who had only recently been a Democrat and who had few fixed convictions outside of narcissism and nativism, racism and sexism? My sense of alienation has only deepened as I have watched the Trump presidency in action. No other president has been more hostile to the values of conservatism as I conceived it.

American conservatism is very different from the kind of "blood and soil" conservatism that has long been characteristic of Europe. Continental conservatism is chauvinistic and pessimistic; American conservatism is optimistic and inclusive.

Conservatism, American-style, means different things to different people. There is, after all, an inherent tension in advocating a conservative vision in a liberal society in which social, economic, and technological change is constant. American conservatism is very different from the kind of "blood and soil" conservatism that has long been characteristic of Europe. Continental conservatism is chauvinistic and pessimistic; American conservatism is optimistic and inclusive.

For me, conservatism means prudent and incremental policymaking based on empirical study; support for American global leadership and American allies; a strong defense and a willingness to oppose the enemies of freedom; respect for character, community, personal virtue, and family; limited government and fiscal prudence; freedom of opportunity rather than equality of outcome; a social safety net big enough to help the neediest but small enough to avoid stifling individual initiative, enterprise, and social mobility; individual liberty to the greatest extent possible consistent with public safety; freedom of speech and of the press; immigration and assimilation; and colorblindness and racial integration.

Looming above them all are two documents that I revere, as should every American. The Declaration of Independence defines the United States as a nation bound together not by shared heritage or blood but rather by a shared belief in the "self-evident" truths "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

To judge by his words and actions, Trump does not understand or believe in a single one of these principles. Yet he remains wildly popular among Republicans and conservatives.

The "pursuit of Happiness" is a critical concept, putting personal freedom at the center of our political enterprise. While the Declaration lays out the goals of self-government, the Constitution defines how we can achieve them. It protects our liberties, limits the government’s power, and ensures that the rule of law prevails. We honor, defend, and respect the Constitution, and the offices, laws, and norms that derive from it. All Americans, of all political persuasions, are expected to defer to the Constitution, but it should be of particular concern to conservatives who proclaim their desire to conserve what makes America great.

That, to me, is American conservatism. That is what I believe. Those are the ideas I have tried to advance as a writer and commentator. To judge by his words and actions, Trump does not understand or believe in a single one of these principles. Yet he remains wildly popular among Republicans and conservatives. When 2016 began I could hardly find a Republican who had anything positive to say about Trump. By the beginning of 2018 it was hard to find a Republican who had anything negative to say about him—at least in public.

How can this be? Did I not understand all along what American conservatism was all about? Did I miss essential features that Trump had discerned and used to his benefit? Or had conservatism morphed under the magnetic pull of Trump’s outsized personality to become something very different from the movement I had grown up in?

I have undertaken a painful and difficult intellectual journey, leaving behind many of the simple verities that I clung to for decades as a "movement" conservative. I am now forced to think for myself, and that is not an easy thing to do.

The modern conservative movement was inspired by Barry Goldwater’s canonical text from 1960, The Conscience of a Conservative. I believed in that movement, and served it my whole life, but under the pressure of Trumpism, conservatism as I understood it has been corroding—and so has my faith in the movement. Hence this book’s title. I am perceiving ugly truths about America and about conservatism that other people had long seen but I had turned a blind eye to. I no longer like to call myself a conservative, a label that has become virtually synonymous with Trump toady. I now prefer to think of myself as a classical liberal.

I would like to be able to quote Ronald Reagan’s quip when he became a Republican—"I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me"—but in truth my beliefs are shifting because of the rise of Trumpism and other contemporary developments such as the failure of the Iraq invasion, the Great Recession of 2008–2009, the #MeToo movement, and the spread of police videotapes revealing violent racism. My ideology has come into conflict with reality—and reality is winning.

I have undertaken a painful and difficult intellectual journey, leaving behind many of the simple verities that I clung to for decades as a "movement" conservative. I am now forced to think for myself, and that is not an easy thing to do. But given the epochal events that have shaken America, this self-reflection is necessary, indeed overdue. I only wish more conservatives were willing to engage in similar self-examination instead of resorting to glib insults of "libtards" and "snowflakes" or reflexive defenses of the man who has usurped their party.

I am no longer a Republican, but I am not a Democrat either. I am a man without a party. This is a record of my ideological journey so far—and of my attempts to come to grips, honestly and unflinchingly, with the phenomenon known as Trumpism.

I am no longer a Republican, but I am not a Democrat either. I am a man without a party. This is a record of my ideological journey so far—and of my attempts to come to grips, honestly and unflinchingly, with the phenomenon known as Trumpism. The question that haunts me is: Did I somehow contribute to the rise of this dark force in American life with my advocacy for conservatism? Whatever the case, I am now convinced that the Republican Party must suffer repeated and devastating defeats. It must pay a heavy price for its embrace of white nationalism and know-nothingism. Only if the GOP as currently constituted is burned to the ground will there be any chance to build a reasonable center-right political party out of the ashes.

How did we get to the point where I—a lifelong Republican—now wish ill fortune upon my erstwhile party? To find the answer, I invite you to turn the page with me, literally as well as figuratively.

What follows is not a full-blown memoir or autobiography. But to make you understand why I—and other #NeverTrump conservatives, all too few in number—feel such a strong sense of betrayal at the hands of Trump and his Republican Party, it is important for you to understand how I became a conservative in the first place and what it felt like to be a conservative in the heyday of the movement. My history, I feel, can help the reader to make sense of late-twentieth-century conservatism—now, in the early twenty-first century, practically unrecognizable.

Today we are locked in a bitter custody battle over the future of the Republican Party: Will it return to its previous principles or will it remain forever a populist, white-nationalist movement in the image of Donald Trump?

I take the story up to the present day, explaining why I left the Republican Party because of my profound opposition to Trump, how Trump continues to traduce conservative principles, and what the future holds for me and other conservatives who cannot imagine being members of a Trumpista party. Put another way, this is a tale of first love, marriage, growing disenchantment, and, eventually, a heartbreaking divorce. Today we are locked in a bitter custody battle over the future of the Republican Party: Will it return to its previous principles or will it remain forever a populist, white-nationalist movement in the image of Donald Trump?

This book, I strongly suspect, will infuriate many of my old comrades on the right who will conclude that I have gone soft in the head or sold out my beliefs to gain popular acceptance in liberal circles. I, in turn, am convinced that they are the ones who have gone off the rails by embracing a demagogue who seems to equate bigotry with conservatism. There is a gulf between us that cannot be bridged, at least not while Trump is still in office.

Likewise, what follows is unlikely to satisfy the hard left. No matter how strongly I come out against Trump and his hateful works, I find it is never enough for the most doctrinaire leftists who seem to think that no step short, perhaps, of ritual suicide will atone for my "war crimes," which upon closer examination seem to consist of supporting an invasion of Iraq that was backed by bipartisan majorities in both houses.

I love America. I am devoted to conservative principles. I want to defend what I hold dear when I see it under unprecedented attack from within—with the greatest threat posed by a man at the very pinnacle of power.

This book is not addressed to the far left or the far right. It is written with the center-left and the center-right in mind. My hope is that my ideological odyssey will inspire others—that I can be part of a larger, bipartisan movement in America toward greater moderation and civility in our politics. Or, if that doesn’t happen, and if the present trend toward extremism continues, I will at least register my dissent in the strongest terms I know.

I love America. I am devoted to conservative principles. I want to defend what I hold dear when I see it under unprecedented attack from within—with the greatest threat posed by a man at the very pinnacle of power. This is how I became a conservative and why I no longer feel part of a movement whose betrayal of its principles is abhorrent to me.

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Max Boot is a historian, best-selling author, and foreign-policy analyst. He was a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2007–08, Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2011–12, and Marco Rubio’s campaign in 2015-2016.

He will join the Pacific Council for a discussion on October 25. Watch the livestream here.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.