I find myself throwing around the term 'Republican Party' in contrast to 'Trump' a lot, and when I do this I am mostly following to logical conclusions the narrative I see portrayed in the media concerning Trump's success. There are people in power in the party who truly dislike and even fear his candidacy.
Yet, what is the 'Republican Party'? Isn't it the base?
The reason Trump and Cruz and others succeed is they understand something very simple and fundamental: The base is the party. Anyone or anything calling itself the party is on flimsy ground when the base of that same party is elsewhere entirely.
Voting really does matter. Most of the people voting on behalf of the Republican Party - the base - are voting for Trump. It is that simple.
And it is their party. Our government truly is of the people and by the people. The Republican Party is now, in fact, on the way to becoming Trump's party. He understands the base. They are buying him. He is very intelligent.
Let's be brutally frank: The powers that be, the ones selling whatever the message for the GOP, whatever they are saying at Fox News or wherever, they now had better start selling something else. Fast.
They poisoned their own waters, they fed their own electorate on cynicism for years upon years, about how bad their government seems to be. And now it is coming back to haunt. They crapped their own bed, so to speak.
And you know what? Trump is apparently the best the Republican Party has to offer. They can nominate Trump - or anger their base even more by denying his rightful candidacy - they can nominate Trump and lunatics like Trump to represent their party until kingdom come, but none of them will have any prayer of winning the presidency.
The longer time marches on, the truer that will become demographically. Time marches on. And it is a big problem for the modern Republican Party.
I think their brand is toast. They set their base on fire and now they want to put it out. As it says in Proverbs, they sowed the wind and now they are reaping the whirlwind.
I think if they don't turn to the left soon, if they don't put out the fires and start making sense, if they don't acknowledge that they must actually not only govern but pay for it, they will lose the Supreme Court for a generation.
Or let's see what happens if they keep moving to the right. I think more of Cruz and Trump will happen. Establishment Republicans hate Cruz even more than they hate Trump, and now they find themselves in the odd position of pulling for him a little bit, this man they despise, because they fear Trump more.
It will now be incumbent upon the post modern Republican Party - the new, more progressive party that emerges because it simply must to survive - to educate their base in less anarchist trains of thought.
But do you know what they will probably do instead? Double down. They will try to sell the new Jerry Springer Show face of the party as legitimate. They will pour more fuel on the fire. God I hope not, but they probably will drag it out unto ashes.
You can't fool people forever. It is time for the conservative oligarchs to relent and acknowledge that they must pay more into the society that made them. They are winning this class war of theirs, but poverty sucks and people will vote about that.
Sooner or later even their own conservative base will vote more progressive about that.
Conservatives are wrong about issue after issue on the merits - it is only a matter of time before the poor and huddled masses wake up and vote about their pain at the hands of austere conservative policies.
Amazing how rich some conservative people become during such hard times of austerity!
Not just the economy. (May I add, thanks to James Carville for his very true political dictum, "It's the economy, stupid." ... the basis for the title I used). Science itself is turning against Republicans; even basic information ruffles feathers now. Reason is tenuous.
Even now the best they have to offer is a train-wreck of a candidate who can carry, perhaps, one third of the country in the presidential election. Yikes.
Republicans must stop moving their base to the right to survive. As far as I can tell, this will have to be a fuck-Grover-Norquist fundamental shift in the way they approach government, a new direction when it comes to what really matters - the money. They simply cannot sell smoke, mirrors, hand shadows, bullshit, and anarchy forever.
Why is Trump winning? It's the base, stupid.