George Will, who also has better things to pay attention to, says “[Donald] Trump is the GOP’s chemotherapy, a nauseating but, if carried through to completion, perhaps a curative experience.” I think Mr. Will is too optimistic.
With Paul Ryan saying he will neither campaign for nor defend Mr. Trump (but not withdrawing his endorsement) and Donald Trump seeming to spend almost as much time attacking Speaker Ryan as Hillary Clinton (who is, the last time I looked, Mr. Trump’s actual opponent), Mr. Trump’s loss on November 8 is looking pretty certain. The Senate is likely to go Democratic, too.
The result will not be the “curative experience” that Mr. Will hopes for. It will be a civil war in the Republican Party as the pro- and anti-Trump sides blame each other for another Democratic President/Democratic Congress two-year run like 2009-2010.
Donald Trump’s upcoming loss will not resolve the policy/viewpoint differences between the more traditional Republican Party (which includes people who supported Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes) and the newer Republican Party (the talk-radio types and people who voted in Republican primaries for the first time this year to support Trump).
Maybe Mitch Daniels’ suggestion of an “adult conversation” would work. Some people would like to have one. Unfortunately, that is not Donald Trump’s strong point – or, in this column, George Will’s.
I don’t know what the long-term result will be (or even the middle-term result). But the short-term result is looking like Paul Ryan not needing to worry about whether he will be able to get enough Republican votes to be elected Speaker in January – because there will be more Democrats in the House than Republicans anyway.
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