# What will the Republicans do if Trump implodes before the convention? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 7, 2016, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-republicans-do-if-trump-implodes-before-the-convention/756709 "2016-06-07T02:32:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-republicans-do-if-trump-implodes-before-the-convention/756709/81 "2016-06-08T10:29:36Z")
Or he’s down with OPP. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-republicans-do-if-trump-implodes-before-the-convention/756709/82 "2016-06-08T11:16:13Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Grayson could be better than Trump, but we’re assuming normal Republican nominee here, like McCain or Romney. > > There will come a time when Democrats will have to either hold their nose and vote for a corrupt or nutty nominee over a quite reasonable and mainstream Republican. No, there won’t – a reasonable and mainstream Republican simply can’t win the party’s nomination any more. Trump has given the Teanut Gallery a taste of red meat, the Grand High Panjandrums of the party establishment will never get them back to accepting the pink slime of talking the hard-right talk during the primaries and Etch-a-Sketching back to the center for the general election. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-republicans-do-if-trump-implodes-before-the-convention/756709/83 "2016-06-08T11:18:23Z")
Look at the primary results and reconsider what their mainstream really is now. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-republicans-do-if-trump-implodes-before-the-convention/756709/84 "2016-06-08T11:53:37Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > No, there won’t – a reasonable and mainstream Republican simply can’t win the party’s nomination any more. Trump has given the Teanut Gallery a taste of red meat, the Grand High Panjandrums of the party establishment will never get them back to accepting the pink slime of talking the hard-right talk during the primaries and Etch-a-Sketching back to the center for the general election. Why not? Surely the argument is that they’ll opt for whoever is the most likely to talk the talk without Etch-a-Sketching back to the center. So if, four years from now, it’s a bunch of reasonable and mainstream candidates, said plurality of the Republicans will vote for whichever of them outpaces the _others_, right? So all they have to do is keep the next wannabe Trump out. Are they politically savvy enough to do that? Well, they weren’t _this_ year, of course – but four years from now, they may well have a card to play that they couldn’t have played this time. Imagine that Trump flops. Imagine his brand is tarnished. We’ve seen him get excoriated for racist remarks in the context of a now-publicized fraud lawsuit against him; get mocked for refusing to release his tax returns, while people speculate about how little income and wealth he actually has; get a Republican senator with military experience to declare him unfit to command the nuclear arsenal – so just imagine that all (b) keeps on keeping on, and (b) gets so, so much worse before he loses big. Say you’re a GOP bigwig who couldn’t come up with anything to tell Trump when he was thinking of running. Can you come up with something interesting to tell the next guy who’s thinking of running against reasonable and mainstream candidates? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-republicans-do-if-trump-implodes-before-the-convention/756709.md?page=4)