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Trump’s presumptive nomination creates a gut-check moment for GOP.

Ted Cruz pulled out all the stops in his bid to win the Republican primary in Indiana: naming Carly Fiorina as his running mate, joining forces with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, securing an endorsement from Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and, on Tuesday, denouncing rival Donald Trump as “utterly amoral.”

But Trump’s sweeping victory left the Texan’s last stand in the Hoosier State looking like Custer’s at Little Bighorn. With the win and Cruz’s decision to suspend his campaign, Trump becomes the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — and leaves members of his party with a gut-check moment.

Normally, a party that controls both chambers of Congress, 34 governorships and 31 state legislatures would not be teetering on a precipice. Thanks to Trump, that is precisely where the GOP finds itself.

To say Trump is bad for the Republican Party is like saying a flood is bad for your basement. He stokes white resentment at a time when the party needs to attract minority voters. He demeans women when they, too, are vital to the party’s future. His intolerance turns off Millennials. And he labors under the opinion that his deep infatuation with himself is shared by a majority of voters. His unfavorable rating stands at 65%.

The question now is what Republicans should do.

Should they rush to jump aboard the “Trump train” and attempt to paper over his many faults? That might be the expedient move. Indeed, the Republican National Committee called on party members to unite and focus on defeating Hillary Clinton. But responsible Republicans need more than expediency.

In the not-too-distant future, those seeking office will be forced to explain where they stood in 2016 when Trump clambered toward the nomination by appealing to racist, xenophobic and misogynistic sentiments.

A better approach is to live to fight another day. That would mean acknowledging Trump’s likely nomination, and then giving him a very wide berth.

Cruz, Trump’s main rival for much of the race, appears to be heading in that direction. On Tuesday, after Trump bizarrely tried to link Cruz’s father with Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, Cruz called Trump a “narcissist,” a “pathological liar” and a “serial philanderer.”

In his speech announcing the suspension of his campaign, Cruz spoke glowingly of Ronald Reagan’s unsuccessful effort to win the nomination in 1976, a loss that would be erased four years later when he won the presidency. Notably absent from Cruz’s remarks was any mention of this year’s presumptive nominee.

Clinton should embrace some of Sanders’ ideas, and jettison others.

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has been less than stellar. Going into Indiana on Tuesday, she had lost 17 states to Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old “democratic socialist” from Vermont who was once dismissed as token opposition. Her favorable ratings have sagged.

As Clinton inches ever closer to the nomination, despite Tuesday’s loss to Sanders in Indiana, job No. 1 is to patch things up within her party. To that end, she will soon highlight proposals in areas such as campaign-finance reform and college affordability that sell well among Sanders’ backers.

These causes make sense, both as good policy and good politics. But there are certain other things she should, and should not, do to appeal to Sanders’ voters.

She could advocate greater income equality through a fairer tax code, the elimination of the special tax rate for cossetted money managers, and a renewed push for a reasonable increase in the minimum wage.

She should continue to promote better health care access and affordability by allowing Medicare to bargain with drugmakers.

What she should steer clear of is special interest politics masquerading as progressivism.

Whatever one might say of Sanders’ anti-trade agenda, it is not the least bit progressive. The protectionism that he preaches would harm those who need help most, by forcing them to pay more for their everyday goods. It also would punish companies large and small that are counting on exports to grow their payrolls.

If Clinton lurches further to the left on trade, she will expose a Democratic Party that is less about principles than about assembling self-interested voting blocs, in this case organized labor.

There is also nothing particularly progressive about the pandering of many Democrats to public sector unions. Overly generous retirement benefits for government workers are a key reason states and cities are struggling to provide needed services.

And on energy, Clinton should disavow Sanders’ war against fracking, the drilling technique producing a natural gas boom that has done far more than renewable energy to displace greenhouse gas emissions from coal.

With Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee, it is possible, though hardly certain, that Clinton could be swept into office along with a Democratic majority in at least one chamber of Congress.

That underscores the importance of how she patches things up with Sanders’ supporters as she closes in on the nomination. The proposals she embraces now might be more than just proposals come next year.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

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