‘The Donald’ a major problem for GOP
Bombastic tycoon has Republican establishment all in a tizzy
TORONTO — A new poll suggests the bombastic billionaire property mogul Donald Trump is widening his lead over more traditional rivals for the Republican nomination with 24 per cent support, double that of former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
For the party of Lincoln, this is a problem. Trump might be the candidate to beat in the primaries, but even many Republicans think he cannot win the White House. But when it comes to dealing with the threat Trump poses to its fortunes, the party has an even bigger problem — it is all but powerless.
The Grand Old Party calls itself the “party of the open door,” and its rules reflect this. They cannot revoke Trump’s membership, even though his loyalty is suspect, given that he was once a Democrat, and he has refused to pledge support to any Republican but himself. They cannot reject his candidacy by fiat. They cannot prevent him from gathering the signatures required to get on a primary ballot, and by the time of the Iowa caucuses and the other state primaries in the winter, the choice will be formally with party members.
“There’s nothing the Republican National Committee can do about it,” said Don Abelson, professor and chair of political science at Western University.
“The question is how much staying power does he really have,” Abelson said. The answer is billions of dollars worth, and little else to lose. “There’s absolutely no incentive on his part to walk away from this until he sees how he does in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.”
The Republican Party has been here before. Briefly, in 2011, Trump led Mitt Romney in the polls. But this time is different. After losing to the incumbent Democrat Barack Obama in 2012, the Republican Party made an effort to stamp out its bozo eruptions, to let Obama’s support deflate naturally, to quietly preserve its own momentum, and put forth an electable candidate in 2016.
As the national party machine kept closer tabs on its candidates, it grew increasingly wary of rogues and demagogues, people like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann who brought so much attention for so little benefit. Trump’s popularity, despite comments seen as disparaging to Latinos and women, both key demographics, has blown that strategy out of the water. And it seems the party is powerless to stop it.
“Oh come on, you can always do something,” said Heather Cox Richardson, professor of political history at Boston College and author of To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party.
“They want him to shut up and go away,” she said, but he’s a salesman on a roll, and one danger in interfering is Trump might run as an independent and split the right wing vote.
“If Trump runs as an independent, a Democrat walks in,” Richardson said.
A popular theory holds that now is political silly season, and the Trump candidacy is so vain and preposterous it will inevitably collapse all by itself.
One Republican strategy, therefore, is as Abelson described it, to just let Trump talk and “dig a deeper grave for himself.”
Another theory is that Fox News, the right wing network known as the modern Republican kingmaker, might take a stab at regicide. This was partly undermined Monday by Trump’s announcement that Roger Ailes, who runs the network, has promised to treat him “fairly.”
Richardson takes a broader view. She thinks maybe Republicans should let Trump win, let him lose, let him burn the party to the ground, so it can be rebuilt.
“Extremists have been flirting with running off on their own for years now,” she said, and criticizing Republican nominees for being ideologically impure. Now may be the moment to hand it over to these “movement conservatives,” to let Trump go down like Barry Goldwater in 1964, then build a new political party for a new electorate, in which millennials have just demographically surpassed baby boomers, and politics is learning to look beyond the representation of rich white men.”