We may be witnessing the collapse of the Republican party, or at least the Republican party as we know it. And if so, then Donald Trump is the harbinger of its apocalypse.
The signs of the party’s weakness and disarray are everywhere. Trump is the GOP’s presidential front-runner by most any measure. Yet the candidate is now in open warfare with two of the right’s most influential media platforms: National Review and Fox News.
Last week, National Review published a special issue devoted to denouncing the candidate.
Then on Tuesday, Trump announced that, because Fox refused to comply with Trump’s demand.
All-out conflict between two of the right’s leading media outlets and the GOP’s presidential frontrunner is virtually unprecedented. Among other things, it suggests that the traditional party power structures are breaking down, and are now competing amongst each other to retain their dominance.
Trump’s candidacy exists almost entirely outside the traditional support structure for successful Republican candidates. His campaign, for example, is run by a small staff of loyalists with little traditional national campaign experience and funded without the backing of the GOP donor class. He appears to have only one issue adviser, a former trade and immigration staffer for Alabama Sen.
Trump is essentially running his own party now, housed within a hollowed-out GOP brand. In less than a year, he has all but taken over.
Just a thought.
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