Hot Air is pleased to present a guest post from acclaimed author Brad Thor, a friend of the site and an active conservative voice in social media. Brad has been a vocal advocate of the #NeverTrump movement, but has recently reconsidered his position, as he explains below. The views expressed do not necessarily represent Hot Air, Townhall, Salem Media Group, or its staff.

This is not easy news (especially for a #NeverTrump stalwart) to deliver.

America, you have cancer. And it’s bad – really bad. It’s aggressive. It has spread throughout most of your body and it’s continuing its march.

How much time do we have left? Less than three months.

It’s a lot to take in. I know. It’s not fair. Our parents dodged it. Our grandparents too. Why us? Why now? I think we know the answer. Our parents, our grandparents, and their parents before them took better care. They exercised (their right to vote), were well informed about what ails (a body politic), and pursued healthy nourishment (through participation in their neighborhoods and civic organizations).

If you’ve been wise enough to schedule regular appointments with Doctors Hewitt and Prager, this diagnosis doesn’t come as a surprise. You’ve been warned, repeatedly, that the cancer is out there. What’s more, the best (historical) journals are filled with in-depth examinations of two of the most famous (Athens and Rome) cases.

Despite the knowledge that if we lived long enough, we’d very likely succumb to the cancer, we thought that somehow we’d be immune. We believed we could eat, drink, smoke, and lay around without any consequences. Then we got the bad news.

So what do we do now? Currently, there are only two drugs available that promise a cure.

The first is a decades-old generic, lacking any potency whatsoever. Studies have shown that Drug #1 not only won’t cure the cancer, but that it will actually strengthen it and speed our death. Drug #1 offers no upside whatsoever.

Drug #2 is being offered out of a clinic in Mexico. It claims to be a surefire, can’t lose, 100% guaranteed treatment. The clinic, though, is run by pockmarked, gold-toothed, oily-haired- men in bad suits with absolutely no medical backgrounds. They ogle your wife and daughter incessantly anytime you drop by for more information, and are constantly trying to upsell you into an oceanfront timeshare.

To its credit, though, the clinic is known for having developed a compound from drain cleaner that has increased the muscle mass of midget wrestlers in Tijuana. As proof of its success, the waiting room is adorned with gold-framed pictures. Not so prominently displayed, are the court summonses and the waves of lawsuits from victims of the compound’s side effects. (The clinic’s army of lawyers in Guadalajara handles those).

The clinic is a shady operation at best, but so many people want to believe it has discovered a cure, that they’re willing to pay cash (all up front, no questions asked) to give Drug #2 a chance. After all, what do they have to lose? Drug #1 is a death sentence and everyone knows that the other remedies floating around aren’t powerful enough to cure cancer.

There’s also something else that all of us know – there is no miracle drug coming. (There was a group in Cleveland working on something promising last month, but entrenched interests from Washington made sure the group was shut down.)

Yesterday, Dr. Hewitt tried (yet again) to help guide America to the best (and only) option available to us. I lost a lot of sleep last night reading and then re-reading his words. I awoke this morning with a more nuanced view.

Drug #1 will kill us – no question. Drug #2 might kill us, but it also might:

A) Slow the cancer, or even

B) Cure the cancer

It’s a lot to hope for, I know, but hope is all we have left. We have exhausted every other avenue. Make no mistake – I believe one hundred percent in standing on principle. Principle, in this case though, will not cure cancer.

Sadly, that crappy clinic south of the border is starting to look like our only option.

Brad will appear on The Ed Morrissey Show this afternoon to further discuss his change of position, as well as discuss his latest book Foreign Agent. The show starts at 4 ET and can be seen on Facebook Live at the Hot Air Facebook page.