The Republican Party is shocked -- shocked! -- that the Donald proposes to run for office on their ticket.
Paul Ryan and Lindsey Graham, those darling men who have campaigned righteously to cut public budgets and criminalize women and communities of color, tell us the "crazies" have taken over their party. And they won't stand for this intolerance!
The liberal Daily KOS pronounces:
Donald Trump is simply adapting to a sect in America who wants to hear what he is saying. Trump is not leading. He is the conduit used by a group of confused and ill-informed Americans who uses Trump as their megaphone. The things is, if he gets power they will be quickly forgotten and betrayed.
Um: This is a "sect" that appeared from nowhere?
In related news, the Republican Party has been fussing for years that demographics are not on their side. As the population grows younger, more diverse, less traditional regarding women's roles, the Party frets that it gets harder for Republicans to win national elections. It has won state and local elections by stigmatizing, imprisoning, and impoverishing likely Democratic constituencies and communities. Meanwhile Fox News and other media empires unencumbered by accountability have relentlessly fomented and glorified a besieged mob mentality uniting supercilious billionaires with a particular economic axe to grind, like the Kochs, with the less fact-oriented elements of the public.
Enter into the political arena Donald Trump, a professional "personality," as popular for his irreverent TV persona and his ability to convince blond women to associate with him as for any known accomplishment.
He hears the mob chanting for the tropes he's used to hearing on Fox News, with a regular wink from elected Republicans like Ryan and Graham (and Boehner, Romney, Bush [W], Cheney, Bush [HW], McConnell, etc.): Criminalize abortions. Deport immigrants, Bomb Al-Qaeda (or something). Support the police and the military, lock up black and brown people when they act out their true criminal natures. Our main enemy is radical Muslim terrorism. Obama is a Muslim and not our "real" president. Cut Social Security and other social programs to reduce the deficit.
Since he hasn't been in the real Republican inner circle, in on the complicated shell game the Repubs have been orchestrating all these decades, he responds in kind: Why not? A marketer knows a sales pitch that resonates with the public. And Trump is a marketer.
And guys like Reince Priebus heave a sigh of relief.
Let's pin our sin on the Donald!
Sure, he's singing the song we wrote. But the warranty's expired, it doesn't suit our purposes any longer. We want a way to slip out the back, Jack.
And remarkably, we watch Lindsay Graham slither over from a hearing on his anti-abortion bill called the "Pain-Capable Fetus Act of 2016," to confess to Trevor Noah on March 23 that the Republican Party is having a nervous breakdown. Because of Donald.
He's a racist! He's sexist! He's violent! He incites the mob! He isn't factual!
These aren't the Beliefs or Practices of Our Republican Party. Oh no.
Well, the R's may just have to give up on the presidential election in 2016. Unless Trump can fund and nourish the proto-terrorists, Tea Partiers, and randomly aggrieved he attracts and incites -- a possibility which cannot be dismissed -- his career as a politician is likely limited.
But his usefulness as a Sin Eater for the Republican Party may have only just begun.
Or so the Party Regulars may hope.