A brokered convention to undo Trump would destroy the GOP

Currently, Donald Trump dominates the Republican field in virtually every single poll. In most, he's enjoying a double-digit lead over his nearest competitor. If that data holds, one would assume Trump will glide to an easy primary victory. Whether or not he'd win the general is a separate, easily debatable, question - but there's little doubt that it currently appears that he's headed for the nomination. ...And the mainstream wing of the GOP is less than pleased.

According to the Washington Post, the GOP elite are currently hosting high level meetings to discuss the idea of a floor fight that would usurp Trump and select a more party-friendly candidate.

More than 20 of them convened Monday near the Capitol for a dinner held by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, and the prospect of Trump nearing next 's year’s nominating convention in Cleveland with a significant number of delegates dominated the discussion, according to five people familiar with the meeting. Weighing in on that scenario as Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) listened, several longtime Republican power brokers argued that if the controversial billionaire storms through the primaries, the party’s establishment must lay the groundwork for a floor fight in which the GOP’s mainstream wing could coalesce around an alternative, the people said. The development represents a major shift for veteran Republican strategists, who until this month had spoken of a brokered convention only in the most hypothetical terms — and had tried to encourage a drama-free nomination by limiting debates and setting an earlier convention date. Now, those same leaders see a floor fight as a real possibility. And so does Trump, who said in an interview last week that he, has too, is preparing.

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For years, the Republican base has been complaining the party has ignored its wishes. The GOP elite promoted a parade of candidates like Dole, McCain, and Romney that forced conservatives to hold their noses in the voting booth. Always, the party relies upon the "lesser of two evils" argument when fielding presidential hopefuls, and usually it ends in electoral disaster. Even when their candidate won (looking at you, George W. Bush) the party only enjoyed the most middling of victories. W just barely managed to squeak past two of the least exciting, most easily beatable, Dem candidates in decades. What should have been slam-dunks ended up being nail-biters because the party wasn't interested in fighting for its alleged platform. Instead, it chose candidates who would placate the middle. This was a product of the Rove strategy. Ignore the base, field an easily-controlled party loyalist, and play for 2% of "undecideds." They assumed the base would tolerate this, because it had no other option. For a time, the base was silent. But just below the surface the rage was growing. The Rove strategy was quietly creating a Frankenstein's Monster. Now it looks as though the elites are ready to go scorched-Earth rather than accept the will of the voters they pretend to represent. Over at HotAir, AllahPundit suggests that the party will try to placate the Trump fans by nominating Ted Cruz:

My guess is that some sort of deal would be struck to create a Cruz/Rubio ticket. Job one for the RNC at the convention would be to deny Trump the nomination (as Trump himself basically acknowledges in the excerpt above) while also placating his supporters so that they’re willing to stick around through November and vote Republican in the general election. Rubio, because of his immigration record, is probably unacceptable to too many Trump fans to be the nominee. Cruz, who’s more of an immigration hawk, might be okay.

I suppose that might work. Trump fans will still hate it, but on Election Day most of them would probably be happy to pull the lever for Cruz. I'm not convinced it will happen, though. Two things make me a doubter. The first is that the elites hate Cruz almost as much as they despise Trump. The second is that these are the same people who've spent months floating the ridiculous concept of drafting two-time loser Mitt Romney. I'm not saying they'll get Mitt to jump in, but the very fact that they think someone like Romney is viable makes me doubt the idea that they'd pick Cruz. The bottom line is this: If they nominate Trump they may lose, but the party will go on. If they nominate Trump and win, the party will obviously thrive. If Trump wins enough of the necessary primaries and the party decides to go to war with him, the GOP will have chosen to destroy itself. Trump's army will not follow the party line. Hillary will win, and the party will have mortally wounded itself. None of this should be misconstrued as a Trump endorsement, but if the GOP wants to completely destroy itself, a brokered convention is the way to do it.