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.
Of course they get it - which is why they are scared. Trump is exposing the nomination process for the scam that it really is. We ultimately do not choose the candidate. We are but pawns in the establishment game - the illusion of choice. Not this time, however, thanks to Trump. This is exactly why the GOP-uniparty thugs are so concerned.
Maybe so. Maybe not. But descending into gutter language, name calling and childish invective rarely persuades anyone of anything. If anything, it does the opposite.
If only we could get as many words written about bringing voters together instead of stressing out about the RNC, and establishment, and party, and delegates. It’s probably too late since there have been so many attacks against the 2 remaining candidates that they’ve poisoned large segments of voters against each.
But, if they spend the next few months talking up both candidates, and saying how either one is far better than Hillary, and getting voters to at least accept the party rather than hating the party and wanting a non-party candidate, there may still be time.
Of course the elites will have to go along and accept very soon that there are only 3 possibilities for the next president: Trump, Cruz, and Hillary. Everything they do will help one of those 3. To this point, their choice is obvious - and so is who to blame for the destruction of the republican party.
I disagree with Jonah Goldberg and most of the comments here. Nominating Trump will not blow up the Republican party.
Not nominating Trump will not blow up the Republican Party.
The Republican Party was blown up many years ago. The problem is, it just hasn’t collapsed yet. Right now it is getting pretty shaky though.
Nominating a Nelson Rockefeller just might be the last strew holding it up
All this talk about the demise of the Republican party overlooks the reason politicians are in Washington, to get rich. Elected Republicans lean liberal because it is the easy thing to do. They get friendly reference in the media, they don’t have to face angry recipients of government assistance, and they know, at least from past elections, that the base will hold its nose and vote for a rino simply because the Democrat will be much worse. When faced with being kicked out of office and forced to earn a living, enough of these guys will suddenly become conservative enough to lay the base for the party. They are still holding out hope, but eventually they will have to start fulfilling their campaign promises.
We all talked about wanting a change, and when the time is upon us, several are backing down. Really, All along they just want to stay with the status quo.
Goldberg's very anti-Trump along with every other NRO writer.
Maybe the GOP master plan is give Cruz the nomination at a brokered convention, wait for the Dems to bring forward litigation that Cruz is ineligible, then appoint Romney, Ryan, or Kasich as the nominee???
Gee Jonah, You say that like it's a bad thing.
I don’t see a problem with the fact that something has to be done with “the Republican Party as we know it.” Right now it is just democrat lite.
Sounds plausible.
The only thing that really matters to them is blocking the citizens from electing a President that enforces the laws and borders.
Jonah Goldberg like George Will and Bill Kristol is just incapable of accepting any candidate outside the usual establishment version of mediocrity.
Trump, Cruz and Kasich have skin in the game. How can the nominee realistically be anyone else? “Rules is rules” my patoot.
Agreed. And these are the people (ALL of them) who want to lead us.
Goldberg is a never-was who pretends to be an ‘is’. He’s a Beltway puke. Two weeks of Marine Corps training would improve his life and career.
As usual, like most Republicans, he thinks there are only two possible sides.
Which isn't true, of course.
“I was wrong.”
Remember who Jonah writes for. National Review and Townhall.com - two of the most establishment GOP outlets there are.
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