The real estate mogul also scorned Sanders’ alleged hypocrisy (“Bernie Sanders endorsing Crooked Hillary Clinton is like Occupy Wall Street endorsing Goldman Sachs”) and accused the Vermont senator of abandoning “his supporters by endorsing pro‐​war pro‐​TPP pro‐​Wall Street Crooked Hillary Clinton.”

This is how Trump wins, or at least, how he thinks he will. By blasting Clinton’s wars, he appeals to the majority of Americans who remain skeptical of Clinton’s brand of liberal interventionism. By questioning her support for the TPP (which she has since recanted), Trump is reaching out to those Americans who fear the effects of global trade. And by highlighting Clinton’s alleged close ties to Wall Street, Trump hopes to win over some of the millions of voters who are still angry about the bailouts and sweetheart deals that Washington handed out after the 2008 financial crisis.

No wonder GOP leaders and pundits have been looking for an alternative. Their desperation is palpable and understandable. Trump’s embrace of these three core themes—antiwar, antitrade and anti‐​Wall Street—in his general election campaign threatens to split the disparate elements of the GOP coalition, perhaps permanently.

At least a few knowledgeable observers doubt that that would be such a bad thing. In remarks at the National Press Club on July 7, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld noted that the Republican Party has broken apart twice before, and managed to emerge in a stronger position both times. Former President Theodore Roosevelt ran on the Bull Moose ticket against sitting President William Howard Taft in 1912, and nearly prevailed. Eight years later, the GOP won the presidency in a landslide.

Weld explained: