Winsome Sears is a superstar, and a key supporter of Trump when he needed her.

Currently the Lt. Governor of Virginia under Glenn Youngkin, she rose to great prominence during her campaign as a true MAGA voice and a leader of black women who supported Trump. She was a true believer and exceptional spokesman for the former president, and also now a critic.

She is not abandoning Trump over his criticism of Youngkin. In fact, she wasn’t defending the governor at all, as Trump’s attack on the Virginia governor came after, not before, Sears revealed that she was moving on from Trump. Her motivation was Trump’s failure to galvanize support for candidates during the election.

The mission, not the man, is what counts.

VA Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears on Trump running in ‘24: “A true leader understands when they have become a liability. A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage and the voters have given us that very clear message…I could not support him.”
pic.twitter.com/HBarw1VUit

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 11, 2022

“A true leader understands when they have become a liability,” Sears said. “A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage, and the voters have given us that very clear message.”

She said voters are saying “enough is enough” and that America is “the prize.”

I hadn’t noticed Sears’ comments among the overall chatter and infighting about Trump since the election but it strikes me as very significant.

First of all, Trump was important to Sears’ rise to prominence. Secondly, Sears is super smart, articulate, and a rising star.

Now some people will attack her for her apparent disloyalty to Trump, but frankly, I think that is sour grapes. Sears is right: our mission is to save America, not defend Donald Trump. He is more than capable of that if he puts his emotions in his back pocket and focuses on what matters to all Republicans, not just himself.

Trump’s spokesperson, of course, took the former view. I take the latter:

“Winsome Sears rode a wave of President Trump’s voters to election victory in 2021,” the statement said. “Her comments are a slap to the face to all of the grassroots Republicans that worked so hard to get her elected. They won’t forget this and there will be a reckoning. There always is in politics.”

Ironic indeed that Sears’ dedication to the mission, not the man, is seen as a slap in the face of grassroots Republicans. I suspect that more than a few have worked in the trenches for decades because of their own dedication to the mission. Candidates come and go, but the fundamental truths we defend are eternal.

I supported Trump when and because he was a vehicle for achieving my ultimate goal: saving America and indeed Western Civilization from the creeping Marxism that is growing like a fungus over everything. Woke ideology, socialist/fascist economics, the Bond-villain Elite™, the administrative state–all these are enemies of all that is right and true and just.

Trump himself? He always struck me as a showman and a huckster without a heart of gold. But so what? He was fighting the right fights and doing the world a lot of good, so unlike many, I was indifferent to his tantrums, tweets, and hyperbole. All those things annoyed me, but it was also fun to watch the Left go postal every time he spoke. So there was some compensation for all the drama.

But Trump’s post-election behavior–attacking successful Republicans and learning all the wrong lessons from Tuesday’s disastrous disappointments – has soured me on him, probably permanently. The worst aspects of his character–the ones that disappointed me by failing to anger me when he was doing good things for the country–are now doing damage to our cause and hence my beloved country.

I truly believe that America is the last best hope for mankind in the near term, and I am willing to support a man like Trump as I would a man like George Patton because he was a general who won battles. And for a Marine like Winsome Sears winning battles is the acid test.

Trump, who had passed that test in the past, is failing it now. Loyalty to fellow soldiers in the field is a must, but loyalty to a failing general in a losing battle is a fatal mistake. Lincoln understood that in the Civil War. He kept on firing generals until he found one who could win. That general too had terrible flaws, but he won.

Trump is attacking other winning generals, demanding fealty and disdaining success. Interestingly, none had attacked him even elliptically when Trump struck.

Trump deserves respect for his accomplishments and is owed the thanks of all of us for what he did right. But he doesn’t deserve loyalty from us that he does not return either to his allies or the cause we all serve.

If DeSantis–my choice as a candidate–becomes a losing general then I will look for yet another leader to carry on the cause. The conservative cause is far larger than one man, and deserves more loyalty than a single person can ask for.