Stepping back from the damage Trump has done to the Constitution, it's amazing the damage he did today to the GOP. As recently as five years ago, I thought the Republicans were going to stay a solid majority for a long time. Trump destroyed that and saved the Dems. /1
By 2012, the Dems were dependent on Obama, who had no interest in party-building. There was a chance that the GOP was going to learn from 2012 and broaden out. The Fox demo didn't need to be placated. (As Reagan's people said of evangelicals in 84, they're not gonna vote Dem.) /2
Nominating Clinton - which everyone knew in 2009 would happen in 2016 - would cement the gigantic losses the Dems were taking under Obama. Instead, Trump rode to the rescue, flipping the script, and making the GOP as unpalatable to millions as Dems once were. /3
The GOP had every chance to avert this, even right up to tonight. Instead, they're doubling down on a coalition of angry old people, Southerners, mountain state gun nuts, single-issue pro-lifers. That's unsustainable, and they know it. That's why they're so manic now. /4
Yes, I know, there are educated Trump voters in blue states. Who cares? Trump and the GOP have written them off. (Their own voters!) The game now is a base play to win the EC one more time and nominate judges until McConnell and the rest of the old men retire. /5
This works in the short term. It might even re-elect Trump. But this is death, sooner rather than later, for the GOP. Paul Begala once said the Dems can't survive on a coalition of Af-Ams and college profs; likewise, GOP can't subsist on the South and some sparse mtn states. /6
It can survive as a party that will elect some senators and make Dem wins for the WH closer, but it's not a party that will be able to contest very much within five years. That's why the GOP is manic for judges: Those are all that will be left when the rest of them are gone. /7
The hell of it is, it didn't have to be this way. The GOP could have recovered as a solid, center-right party (Baker, Hogan) once it got over its Obama Derangement. But that requires courage and introspection. Instead we, got Nunes, Gohmert, McCarthy, Graham. So it goes. /8x
