Posted on 03/23/2016 7:17:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
Nominating Donald Trump will wreck the Republican Party as we know it. Not nominating Trump will wreck the Republican Party as we know it. The sooner everyone recognizes this fact, the better.
Denial has been Trump's greatest ally. Republicans and commentators didn't believe he would run. They didn't believe he could be an attractive candidate to rational people, no matter how angry with "the establishment" voters said they were. They -- which includes me -- were wrong.
The denial lasted longer for some than others. Long after many observers had come to the realization that Trump was the front-runner, Jeb Bush's super PAC, Right to Rise, believed Bush's real rival was Marco Rubio. It spent $35 million trying to destroy Rubio before it dropped its first $25,000 attacking Trump.
Over the weekend, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus showed the first public signs of acceptance about what's in store for the party. He finally acknowledged that the Republican nominee was probably going to be determined on the convention floor in Cleveland.
Priebus explained, rightly, that the rules are the rules, and that if Trump can't secure the required 1,237 delegates before Cleveland, it's anyone's game. "This is a delegate-driven process," he told CNN's Dana Bash. "The minority of delegates doesn't rule for the majority."
Trump's response to this floor-fight talk was to vomit up the usual word salad.
"All I can say is this, I don't know what's going to happen," Trump told ABC's "This Week." "But I will say this, you're going to have a lot of very unhappy people [if I'm denied the nomination]. And I think, frankly, for the Republicans to disenfranchise all those people because if that happens, they're not voting and the Republicans lose."
Even through the syntactical fog, Trump's point is clear: If he can't reach 1,237, he should get the nomination anyway. Because he is Trump. If that doesn't happen, his supporters will stay home, defect from the party, riot or all three.
And he's right. Not about deserving the nomination even if he doesn't have the delegates. That's typical Trumpian whining. But he's right that if he's denied the nomination, many -- not all, but many -- of his supporters will bolt from the convention and the party.
Left out of Trump's unsubtle threat: Many anti-Trump Republicans will desert the convention and the party if he's not denied the nomination.
There are only three possible ways to avoid a calamitous walkout. Ted Cruz can win the nomination outright before the convention. That's very unlikely given that he'd need to win roughly 80 percent of all the remaining delegates.
Second, Trump could reveal he has a hidden reservoir of magnanimity and patriotism, and rally his faithful to the consensus nominee. Stop laughing.
Third, the delegates could pick someone sufficiently attractive that Trump followers get over their understandable bitterness and support that candidate despite Trump's objections. Who would that be? Certainly not Mitt Romney. Maybe a reanimated Ronald Reagan. Or Batman? I have no idea.
All of these scenarios are so unlikely in part because the split in the GOP isn't merely about a single personality. Trump represents just the most pronounced of a spiderweb of ideological and demographic fault lines that are increasingly difficult to paper over. As Joel Kotkin put it in a column for the Orange County Register, the Republican Party now "consists of interest groups that so broadly dislike each other that they share little common ground."
Put simply, and with the incessant and obtuse comparisons of Trump to Reagan notwithstanding, you cannot have a party that's both Reaganite and Trumpish.
Trump's cheerleaders insist that he's a symptom of long-simmering maladies on the right. I'm persuaded (even though I think Dr. Trump's remedies are nothing but snake oil). Even now, too many GOP leaders think Trump's success is purely a result of his brash personality, and nothing more. But only when we accept that a terrible diagnosis is real is it possible to think intelligently about our options.
To wit: This ends in tears no matter what. Get over it and pick a side.
This type of language leads me to believe that the author may not be an impartial commentator.
They still don’t get it do they.
And finally acceptance shows her face.
The GOP as we know it needs to be wrecked.
They are siding with the illegal aliens and their employers against the citizens and the rule of law.
Their betrayal of the citizens has begotten Trump.
Sit on it and spin, Jonah.
Finally past denial and outrage, into acceptance
Jonah Goldberg is one of those authors that in some cases writes stuff I thoroughly agree with and in some cases writes stuff that I think should get him a brain transplant.
Either:
Trumpeters stay home,
Anti-Trumpeters stay home,
Or some clown goes 3rd party and everybody stays home.
Time to pray for a Hillary indictment!
A plus for the citizens of the USA.
Lucy’s kid? Why he’s the paragon of objectivity. /s
Blow it up. The sooner the GOP is gone, the sooner we might have some alternative to a uniparty.
Regardless of how this election turns out, I can see Conservatives going 3rd party. Progressive populism and progressive crony capitalism is what the Republican party stands for now and I could care less if it burns to the ground.
They write that like it's bad thang....................
GMTA!!!!!...............................
Republicans use to stand form small government, low taxes, limited regulation,free enterprise and traditional social values. Thy were suspicious of an interventionist foreign policy and favored a strong national defense designed to protect US National Security interests. They were proudly “American 1sters” who were suspicious of any internationalist tendencies in foreign, or trade, policy. They had a firm believe in the rule of law.
I submit the name Rudy Giuliani for the nomination. He may be good enough of a compromise to to get Trump on board. He will go after Hillary, know how to win over a blue electorate, and will be tough on terror. I’m not sure where he is on immigration, but if he is hawkish on that, maybe that’s a compromise that can be done....
Many anti-Trump Republicans will desert the convention and the party if he's not denied the nomination.
IOW, there is no intention to unite behind Trump. "Our way or the highway," status quo.
I believe this would be a good thing, because the movers and shakers in the party are corrupt and dishonest. Get 'em out of here.
“This type of language leads me to believe that the author may not be an impartial commentator.”
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
enough said.
Nominating Donald Trump will wreck the Republican Party as we know it
Pure BULLSHIT!
I've known enough for years now. Time to give the old guard republican party a lobotomy, enema, transfusion, organ transplant, and fresh change of clothes. It stinks of arrogance and corruption as much as it shows it's ugly disdain for the American people.
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