“Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales!” Thomas More, Act 2, A Man for All Seasons

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, yesterday released a list of Supreme Court prospects that might fill Antonin Scalia’s vacated seat. The list is impressive. Many conservatives were quick to praise either the names being floated, or Trump’s willingness to reach out to the G.O.P.’s right wing. Charles Krauthammer, who has been a relentless Trump scold, predicted that Trump’s gambit will have a positive, “dramatic effect” on conservatives.

There is no doubt the gravity of Scalia’s empty seat outweighs most of this campaign’s issues. A solid judicial selection will influence the Court, and by extension, the nation, for the next several decades. Religious liberty, abortion, gun rights, free speech, and affirmative action all hang in a precarious balance. Conservatives know this, which is why Trump’s decision to release a list at this moment is so shrewd and, for many, a compelling reason to either re-evaluate or shed their #NeverTrump tendencies.

I have one word for this: poppycock.

A Man for All Seasons began as a play and was later turned into an Academy Award winning film. The work portrays Thomas More as a man of supreme conscience–someone so committed to his principles that he was willing to die for them. In particular, More was being pressed to support Henry VIII’s divorce. Richard Rich is a very different sort of man. Obsessed with prestige, wealth, and influence, Rich eventually betrays his good friend More for a political post in Wales, evoking the quote above. More, of course, is condemning not only the loss of Rich’s soul, but the meager price he affixed to it.

Conservatives, if they are lured into Trump’s orbit by a little list of potential nominees, are cheaper even than Richard Rich. Let’s consider.

Trump has proven many things in this campaign cycle. Chief among them is a willingness to embrace any position so long as it is politically advantageous. This is how, unfailingly, Trump can be both for and against minimum wage laws, the deportation of illegal immigrants, and laws against women procuring an abortion. For any conservative to merge onto Trump’s Highway to Havoc because of a dozen or so names is comical.

Even if, somehow, Trump could guarantee not only that he would win, but that he would also appoint someone on this list, that is simply not enough to induce my vote. This is not a transaction. It is not a negotiation. Trump’s olive branch cannot obviate his deficiencies, which are Legion. My problems with Trump transcend his policies, even if they are agreeable. In short, he has failed to display nearly all of the traits needed for strong, political leadership. He has shown no core set of beliefs beyond his own empowerment and enrichment. He has revealed nothing resembling a coherent understanding of our governing documents or institutions. He has no recognizable foreign policy beyond sloganeering. I cannot treat Trump’s list as much more than a political calculation because there is no evidence to suggest it reflects anything more than that.

Conservatives of most stripes claim to believe in an enduring moral order, a constant view of human nature, and the existence of absolute standards by which we can evaluate our present reality. Conservatism, at least of the brand I come closest to embracing, cannot get lost in policy particulars, but must instead focus on what is good and right and just for society as we find it. Yes, that is about policy, but it is about much more than that. It is about the creation and maintenance of a common culture that, in turn, shapes, empowers, and limits government. No matter his policies, Donald Trump cannot appeal to me as a conservative. He can come out for a flat tax, an overhaul of the social welfare system, and the abolition of the Seventeenth Amendment, and I still would not support him.

Nominating Donald Trump is corrosive to our political system. Electing him would be worse. He represents the fiendish elements of our culture. He is show. He is style. He is cunning. He is unbound. He is reality tv. He is braggadocio. Elevating such a man to the presidency validates these traits, regardless of who he appoints to the Supreme Court.

I am not in the market for perfect candidates, for they do not exist. However, selecting Donald Trump is about much more than choosing a president. It is the carving of an icon that will impute obdurate crassness into the corridors of international power. Like it or not, it is a fundamental disconnect from the America of the past. We have, embarrassingly, made President Obama (and some of his predecessors) a celebrity, but that is an order of magnitude different from making a celebrity president. I cannot, for the life of me, conceive of something less conservative than that.