As Trump walks away with a very decisive victory in the Super Tuesday primaries, and as his candidacy gathers further momentum, the foundations of the Republican Party are shaking, on the verge of crumbling. This is a party in disarray, caught up in a state of panic; its leaders watch as their worst nightmare becomes reality
In this bizarre GOP primary, as Trump rapidly ascends, the Republican Party continues to spiral downward. However, even though their party may be on life support, we can bet that its leaders are not giving up, not caving in the increasing power of Trump, at least not yet.
I'd say that the GOP leadership is burning the midnight oil, feverishly trying to come up with some effective way to take Trump down and out of this primary election process, and replace him with an Establishment candidate. Listen closely and you can hear the grinding and scraping of metal as the GOP sharpens the knives with which to cut Trump's candidacy into little pieces.
Trump is a huge, painful, thorn in the GOP's side, one that they just can't seem to remove. He's like a deadly plague that is spreading throughout this party and threatening its existence. He's like the uninvited guest that has worn out his welcome but won't go home. He's all of these things and a lot more.
There is no question that Trump can never be called a true conservative because he refuses to march to the beat of the Republican ideology. In fact the GOP is certain that he maintains strong ties to the Democratic Party and its ideology. Most political observers recognize that Trump is using this party as the means by which to become the next president and he has no real loyalty to it. And if and when he becomes president he will install his own agenda which will be starkly different from that of the GOP.
This question remains: how can the leadership of the GOP stop him from running away with the nomination? That's a massive dilemma, a conundrum of the highest degree. These leaders know in their hearts that, with the massive baggage that Trump carries with him, he will very likely be destroyed by the Democrats in the general election, and take the Republican Party down with him. But what to do?
What we are witnessing is an all-out war between the Republican Party and Trump and it's very evident that Trump is winning the battle quite handily. Right now he is calling the shots; he seems to be in control of this political party's destiny which does not bode well for its future.
How many options does the Republican Party have in finding some way to come up a truly conservative candidate that they believe can defeat the Democrats in the general election? Let's explore some of those they may have at their disposal.
First of all the members of the GOP hierarchy could just accept the inevitable; the fact that Trump is unstoppable and that it would be an exercise in futility to fight him. They could decide to get on board and support his agenda. But the danger in doing this would be that he would transform the GOP into something that the majority of its members could not tolerate.
Instead of embracing him, they could go after him with a vengeance by digging into his past and trying to discredit him by exposing his failures, questionable business practices, and likely indiscretions. They might find a massive amount of dirt that could label him as the hypocrite that he is. But if they do they risk turning this primary election into a bloody battle which would show the American people just how splintered this party is.
They can try to let the current scenario evolve and hope that Trump will not get enough delegates to win the nomination so they can orchestrate a "brokered convention", a process by which the party Establishment can initiate Trump's demise and install one of their own trusted members, most likely Marco Rubio.
In fact, the GOP is already planning their strategy to topple Trump in this convention. This article reports that "Mysterious outside groups are asking state parties for personal data on potential delegates, Republican campaigns are drawing up plans to send loyal representatives to obscure local conventions, and party officials are dusting off rule books to brush up on a process that hasn't mattered for decades."
To take Trump down at such a potential brokered convention is, of course a long shot but, in the event that it actually happens and Trump is rejected by the delegates, then it is highly likely that he will not hesitate to run in the general election as a 3rd Party independent. He will become the modern-day version of Ross Perot, accumulate a sizable % of the total vote, and the GOP will lose in a massive landslide; they won't know what hit them. Can you imagine the powerful attacks that Trump could launch against the Republican Party in the same way that he did against Jeb Bush, Rubio and Cruz?
How could one man have so much power to actually bring this powerful Establishment to its knees? Here we have one man who is going up against the massive power of the GOP political machine and winning at every turn. When in American history has anything like this ever happened?
Can you imagine what the Founding Fathers, those like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison and others would think if they could see this bizarre spectacle of GOP debates take place with Trump hurling insults and engaging in character assassination; and as he does it his supporters clap and yell at the top of their voices in support of this egomaniac, narcissist, and misogynist. They are ecstatic; they are in a state of euphoria.
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