Now that this is clearly not the case, look for the long knives to come out.
There is really no difference at all between establishment Republicans and the Democrats. Donald Trump represents the biggest threat to their power structure since Ronald Reagan.
Once we get past Labor Day and if Trump is still leading the polls by double digits, we are going to see hundreds of millions of dollars expended in anti-Trump ads. Mostly by Republican PACs.
It is going to be a very nasty campaign.
There is a lot of ammunition out there on Trump as well. Anybody who has even casually followed Trump over the years will know that there is no end to the juicy stories concerning his business dealings and personal affairs. We are going to hear about little old ladies tossed out of their homes, working people tossed out of their jobs by Trump companies gone bankrupt, nasty divorce proceedings, you name it.
The funny thing is, Trump supporters probably aren't going to be budged. With each revelation, people will say that it's just "Trump being Trump" and they will go on to say "maybe this is the kind of many we need in Washington."
In other words, Trump may just be inoculated against the kind of assault coming his way. Think about it, even here on Free Republic, we have a band of anti-Trumpers who post here every single day and on every single thread about what a bad man Donald Trump is and how we are being fooled. But they are getting no love here.
I think the reason for that is that the American people are fed up with politicians in general. Especially conservatives. Trump may not be the pristine conservative we are looking for but consider that the conservatives we did send to Washington on our behalf have done absolutely nothing for us.
Can anybody name ONE conservative victory since we gave the GOP control of Congress? Was there even one time when the GOP establishment successfully went against Obama on any issue at all?
Donald Trump is the street fighter we have been looking for. He had rocked the establishment back on their heels. The media don't know how to handle him. Trump is breaking all the rules and he's clearly not going to roll over and be just another "go along to get along" Republican. Crossing the aisle isn't even in Trump's vocabulary.
The anti-Trumpers proclaim we are be had and that we are making a colossal mistake. But what is the alternative? Jebbie Bush? Even if we can get Ted Cruz the nomination, does anybody really think he'll beat the Democrat? I like Ted Cruz a lot but I don't think he has the street fighting skills that are going to be required to beat a Democrat in the general election, especially with the Democrat GOTV social media driven machine, that completely swamped the witless Mitt Romney last time around.
Trump already has four million Twitter followers and will pass Shrillary Clinton in followers in 2-3 weeks at the current rate. Mitt Romney never got much higher than a million and that was at the peak of the election cycle (Obama had over 50 million by comparison). At this rate, Trump will have his 50 million and then some come November 2016.
Trump is certainly not the perfect choice but he's the best chance we have to move the needle in Washington.
I rarely read such long posts, but that was very, very good.
In the 1850's the Whig Party was split on what it stood for - in that case slavery. In 1841 Whig President William Henry Harrison died and VP John Tyler succeeded to the Presidency. Tyler was a Virginian and states' rights absolutist. [While slavery is not an issue now, states' rights probably is!]
If one reads the Wikipedia article about the Whigs, some parallels do seem to emerge.
VIZ:
In 1848, the Whigs, seeing no hope of success ... adopted only a very vague platform.
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After 1850, the Whigs were unable to deal with the slavery issue. Their southern leaders nearly all owned slaves. The northeastern Whigs, led by Daniel Webster, represented businessmen who loved national unity and a national market but cared little about slavery one way or another.
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No one found a compromise that would keep the party united.
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In the mid-1850s, few looked to the quickly disintegrating Whig party for answers. In the north most ex-Whigs joined the new Republican party, and in the South, they flocked to a new short-lived "American" party.
. . . . .
The election of 1852 marked the beginning of the end for the Whigs. ... Whig Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio was particularly distraught by the defeat, exclaiming, "We are slain. The party is dead—dead—dead!" Increasingly, politicians realized that the party was a loser.
. . . . .
In 1854 ... Other Whigs joined the Know-Nothing Party, attracted by its nativist crusades against so-called "corrupt" Irish and German immigrants.
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After 1856 ... some Whigs and others adopted the mantle of the 'Opposition Party' for several years and enjoyed some individual electoral successes.
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... during the Reconstruction Era, many former Whigs tried to regroup in the South, calling themselves 'Conservatives' and hoping to reconnect with the ex-Whigs in the North. These were merged into the Democratic Party in the South, but they continued to promote modernization policies such as large-scale railroad construction and the founding of public schools.
. . . . .
In today's discourse in American politics, the Whig Party is often cited as an example of a political party that lost its followers and its reason for being, as by the expression "going the way of the Whigs." However, the Whig program for 'internal improvements' or infrastructure spending is now enshrined as an important role of government by nearly all political leaders, especially during economic downturns.