Posted on 08/10/2015 6:50:41 PM PDT by cotton1706
Republicans have been slow in recognizing the real damage Donald Trump is doing to their party. The harm is not to the party’s image. What Trump has done is exacerbate the increasingly bitter rift between the party’s leaders and its grass roots. He’s made the GOP’s future dicey.
The quarter of the Republican electorate Trump has attracted consists largely of this alienated group. Since he voices their resentment of Republican elites – especially their arch-enemies in Congress – he’s become their champion. And champions are hard to dethrone.
Trump doesn’t have to run as an independent to be a serious troublemaker. As long as he stays in the GOP race, the split in the party is likely to deepen and primaries may turn into nasty and divisive contests. And imagine if he wins enough delegates to disrupt the Republican convention by making demands. The media would again make him the center of attention.
“The Republican party created Donald Trump, because they made lot of promises to their base and never kept them,” Erick Erickson, the conservative editor of RedState, told Molly Ball of the Atlantic.
Erickson is right. “At this point, most of the people I encounter on radio and on the internet, they’re not really people who at the end of the day want to vote for Donald Trump,” Erickson said. “But they sure do like that he’s burning down the Republican Party that never listened to them to begin with.”
In Washington, the rift isn’t taken seriously. But it should be. Even before Trump arrived on the Republican scene it was getting worse. It began to grow after Republicans won the House in 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Well, they're getting their comeuppance now! They thought Romney would win in a walk, but his moderation caused him to go down in flames, along with every Establishment-supported senate candidate.
And THEN, they vowed to "crush" conservatives in 2014, and got all their minions elected and reelected.
And we've been watching. They're not getting one of their own this time.
Barnes should know better. Shame on him.
FUFB
the GOP destroyed itself
Hard to argue with that. How many times must a wife put up with her husband's promises to stop screwing the secretaries before she tells him to take a hike?
Besides Hitlery, I mean.
Is there a problem here?
Actually, Republicans have threatene the GOP’s future.
They seem to think they’re Obama Democrats.
Trump didn’t threaten GOP’s future! The GOPe has done it!
and by the way, the Democratic party beat you to it.
“Barnes should know better. Shame on him.”
I quit reading his stuff years ago. He is hopeless.
I don’t see Trump as the threat to the GOP’s future. I see the party leaders as the threat to the party future.
Donald Trump, a One-Man Wedge Issue, Threatens GOP Future
Need To Be Corrected!
Donald Trump, a One-Man Wedge Issue, Threatens GOP-E Future
Yeah, Fred, it's always so much easier on the elites when no one is addressing the issues the grass roots supporters are concerned about. What a divisive guy that Trump is.
Yes, eff Barnes. How many times can he blame “talk radio” for Trump? That represents lazy RINO Beltway thinking.
Don’t forget Bob Dole...
The GOP future? What future? A future of ignoring contistuents, a future of caving into Democrats, a future of spending just less than Democrats, a future of doing nothing about illegal immigration? That future?
The more rags like The Weekly Standard complain, the more I think Trump is a keeper.
Sorry Fred. I believe the riff got started in ernest with the Gang of 14. I will NEVER forgive the Gang for their actions. Then came the amnesty charge and it has been going down hill ever since. Talk radio didn’t cause it, except as they inform us as to what the Re’s are up to. The pubbie leadership mendacity is what has caused the rift. We are done with them. Do you folks in DC hear it yet? If not don’t worry, you will be hearing our voices soon enough!
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