It seems to me that during the primaries, the GOP hopefuls try to out-Right and out-Christian each other, pretty much abandoning any hint of moderation. Well, that’s where there’s money. In 08, they really couldn’t ride on Bush 2’s coattails but the machine had had a pretty good anti-Hillary campaign going for some time. And then the Dems decided to nominate Obama. Anyway, this time around, most of the GOP nominees were all singing the same tune to the far Right and Evangelicals and you could hardly tell them apart and the voters split their support for that side into what, 14 ways? So they sort of self destructed leaving Trump.
I think if Trump loses, Kasich might emerge relatively unscathed. There might be some serious consideration whether the Tea Party will split from the GOP or firm up some sort of coalition. And the GOP and TP will cry Media Bias if Hillary wins and try to do all they can to have her presidency fail.
Frankly, I think Donald and the Trump Organisation could stand to be the guests of honor in a RICO investigation.
Absolutely not. He’ll be 74, the RNC will hate his guts and have reformed the primary process to prevent any Trump-like candidate from ever leading an all-about-me-me-me uprising again, and even his own supporters will tire of him.
I don’t think his age will disqualify him, (unless he really is falling into senioritis), but I agree that we’re going to be neck-deep in Republican superdelegates, next time.
I think the only question is if he’ll be content to sit on the sidelines or if he’ll insist on grabbing the spotlight again. I think he’s demonstrated that none of the current Republican field can match him in star-power. If he gets his own news organization at Breitbart, he might be content to stay out of the race and just be new Rush Limbaugh.
But I don’t think he’ll be willing to let someone else be the star and I don’t think RNC knows how to shut him down without pissing off his fans.
With the Breitbart move, Donald Trump has now legitimized the white christian nationalist movement. White christian nationalism is now being thrust into the mainstream of our political consciousness now. There is no way for him to pivot away from them now, either. They might expect him to soften his tone a little as a matter of political pragmatism but it is a core constituency and they will expect him to deliver. The Ku Klux Klan will be visible.
I think the country is in serious danger right now, and the only thing that can reverse our downward slide is a convincing win by the democratic party down the ballot.
But what will the Republican party look like? What path does the Republican establishment have for reasserting control over its party? The ones who seemed poised to take control of the Republican party are its activists.