The Destruction of the Republican Party

Right now, we are supposed to be watching Jeb! Bush cruise to the family birthright known as the Republican nomination for President. If he was going to lose, Marco Rubio was supposed to be making history. It was always possible neither would catch on, and John Kasich or Chris Christie were going to surprise us all. Initially, Scott Walker was supposed to be an option. Then, along the way here, Donald Trump defined Jeb as "low energy," Marco Rubio turned out to be not so bright, and Kasich and Christie just can't quite break through. Walker? He flopped.

Right now in New Hampshire, Kasich, Christie, Rubio, and Bush combine up for about 40% of the vote. Because they are splitting that vote though, they are all well behind Donald Trump in New Hampshire. In Iowa, the race has come down to Trump and Ted Cruz. Candidates like Rand Paul never really caught on, and former contenders like Huckabee and Santorum have been reduced to side-show status. Iowa Republicans are basically giving up the fight against Trump, in part because they can't beat him, and in part because they don't want Ted Cruz either.

In a functional political party, Iowa isn't coming down to Trump vs. Cruz. The Republican establishment has failed though. They did not function as a political party is supposed to. After months of trying to stop Trump, some of them are now trying to stop Cruz instead. They can't coalesce behind one of the establishment candidates, which is making it hard for them set up an alternative to Trump. It is possible that Trump simply wins Iowa and New Hampshire, and we wake up in a race where Trump is very nearly the presumptive nominee.

The inmates run the asylum in the GOP. The party has moved so far to the hard right, because their voters want them to, that they aren't recognizable as a political party anymore.

"You think about it: When I ran against John McCain, John McCain and I had real differences, sharp differences, but John McCain didn’t deny climate science," Obama said on Politico's "Off Message" podcast. "John McCain didn’t call for banning Muslims from the United States… [The] Republican vision has moved not just to the right, but has moved to a place that is unrecognizable."

This movement is not ultimately productive. The Republican Party is now a collection of conspiracy-theorists, loons, and angry people who aren't listening to anyone in the establishment, and instead are following the Donald Trump's of the world. If the establishment had any form of muscle or power, they would have avoided this. They would have been able to push out some of the establishment candidates, and get that vote concentrated behind one candidate. They couldn't though- because the Republican Party is broken. That's why they pushed out Speaker Boehner. That's why their establishment candidates are failing. That's why Donald Trump might be the Republican nominee.