The GOP Failed and Now We’re Stuck with Trump

Jeff Greenfield: “Everything we have seen in these first 140 days—the splintering of the Western alliance, the grifter’s ethics he and his family embody, the breathtaking ignorance of history, geopolitics and government, the jaw-dropping egomania, the sheer incompetence and contempt for democratic norms—was on full display from the moment his campaign began. And that’s not just what Democrats think—it’s what many prominent Republicans have said all along.”

“So this may be a good time to remember that in a key sense, Trump happened because a well-established, real-life mechanism that was in the best position to prevent a Trump presidency failed. That institution was the Republican Party.”

“But either by cluelessness or willful design, the Republican Party had put itself in a position where one of the most significant functions of a party—the ‘vetting’ of its prospective nominee—was rendered impotent.”