Donald Trump's rise is not the end of the Republican Party; it is a necessary change.

Of course, this week's primary results - with yet more Trump victories - will only increase the panicked outcries of Republican elites, who warn that their party will never recover from a Trump nomination. But these desperate interventions are in fact the terrified screams of a power base that has become utterly remote from the people it is meant to represent.

The 2016 presidential election is now a popular revolt by a segment of American society that has felt belittled, shunned and ignored for years. Mr Trump has tapped into what too many Republican elders failed to notice: that the people they are supposed to keep afloat now count themselves among the working poor.

Since the 1970s, the American middle class has been in decline. Globalisation and stagnant wage growth have made the average American less wealthy, while those in control got richer.

Then there was the Wall Street crash and subsequent recession. It ended in 2009, and the US economy has been growing since, but most people's incomes have not.

The Republicans' white middle-class base has become significantly poorer, and its priorities have changed accordingly. But the party did not follow them. After Mitt Romney's loss in 2012, it concluded that it was Romney's (lunatic) claim that 11 million illegal immigrants should "self-deport" that had proved fatal. So it decided to soften its views on immigration, because in alienating Hispanics (America's fastest-growing demographic), Republicans were putting themselves on the wrong side of history. Yet the party's promise to decimate Medicaid and ObamaCare, America's fledgling efforts at socialised health care, was to be maintained.

Look no further than this election to see how badly out of touch that conclusion was. For the average, poorer American, promising to destroy social security safety nets while welcoming immigration was utterly toxic.

Because of that misguided 2012 post-mortem, Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, became the darling of the political elite, only to find he had little success actually winning votes. Instead, voters have backed a brash, irresponsible, New York liberal with an inch-deep understanding of, or belief in, Republican norms.

In Mr Trump, however, traditional Republican voters see their chance to take power back. They don't care that the real estate mogul gracelessly flaunts his wealth or incites violence. They are on the hunt for a wrecking ball, and Mr Trump is certainly that. It has almost been fun to watch the desperation of the party hierarchy. Mr Romney and a band of other senior Republican figures have tied themselves in knots trying to bring about Mr Trump's demise. But after Trump's victories on Tuesday, they seem less like selfless attempts to save America, and more like the undemocratic plots of a dying breed.

This election might signal an end for the Republican elite, but it doesn't do so for the party itself. Mr Trump has energised the base in a way those denouncing him have long failed to do. With policies that follow no particular track, he has attracted Democrats, independents, and legions of formerly disaffected conservatives.

Significantly, a national poll this week gave Mr Trump a 53pc popularity rating, undermining opponents' claims that he has a low ceiling of support. And three-quarters of those surveyed said the Republican establishment should support him.

The question now is how the party elders will react: reluctantly embrace him, or try to impose their own candidate at the Republic convention this summer?

The former means rowing back on their efforts to paint Mr Trump as a bigot and a liar - a difficult and humiliating process.

But the latter option is much worse. It will confirm the suspicions of ordinary voters that their voices will never be heard, while destroying the best chance the Republican Party has had of reaching the White House since 2008. (© The Daily Telegraph)

Irish Independent