What the Republican Party Might Look Like if Trump Loses

Jamelle Bouie: “There is also the issue of Trump himself. He cares less for the fate of the Republican Party than he does for his personal and pecuniary interests. He has no reason to loosen his grip on the party and every reason to keep it in hand. The real question is whether there are Republicans who could pry it away from Trump. The failure of any Republican to successfully contest his leadership or offer a path away from his personal domination of the party is evidence enough that the answer is no.”

“The anticlimactic truth is that in the wake of a third Trump nomination and a second Trump defeat, the Republican Party would simply stumble along, stuck in his orbit and too weighed down by his gravitational pull to escape.”

“In 2016, the Republican Party was too weak to stop Trump, and after eight years of his leadership it is too weak to break the hold he has over most of its voters and many of its elected officials. If Trump does lose in November, the Republican Party will still be his, for as long as he wants it to be.”