Trump will destroy Republican Party by campaign’s end

The greatest trick the GOP nominee ever played was convincing everyone he was an actual Republican and then destroying the party from within.

This is, as Ben Shapiro termed it, Donald Trump’s final, and biggest, con.

The ‘me’ mindset

A few weeks ago, I wrote a a column about how College Republicans around the country are being punished for not actively going out of their way to endorse Trump without any sense of disloyalty (a word that’s going to come up a lot in this column).

There is an inherent ridiculousness in this notion seeing as the Republican Party has always stood for intellectual diversity and the freedom to choose the views you support.

There have been calls for people to step down and be ashamed for not holding the views that Trump supporters think you should have. This election has become centered on party over principles.

But these were supporters and not the actual campaign or the candidate.

While it may have been disturbing that this was happening, these sentiments couldn’t be traced to the candidate. Supporters don’t always echo the beliefs of the candidate, so it’s unfair to the candidate to say their supporters represent them — on both sides.

Yet, Trump takes what his supporters perpetuate, an authoritarian need for absolute loyalty, and use Twitter to increase their reach.

After the Trump 2005 recordings came out, shocking (basically) everyone, Republican leaders — including House Speaker Paul Ryan — quickly disavowed the comments. This, of course, is not the first time that Ryan has had to disavow something Trump has said.

In response, Trump claimed that Ryan, the highest-ranking Republican in office and certainly one of the most respected, is a “feckless leader” and is a disloyal party member.

He also implicated Sen. John McCain who, in Trump’s own infamous words, said he is not a war hero because he got caught. Just because they’d rather stand on principle than with the party. This all, of course, was done over Twitter, because that’s where Trump takes most of his fights.

Ryan is trying the keep the party together for the sake of conservatism, foolishly, but the man who said he’s a terrible leader is squashing all of his efforts.

Long-term-damage

This is the problem with Trump as an idea: He is turning the party into an authoritarian regime where questioning him or taking a stance against him, that grounds people to their morals, is seen as disloyalty.

Trump, unlike his tweets imply, does not care about the party in any way whatsoever. He cares about himself. He still wins even if the idea of conservatives dies.

There is no room for disloyalty to the leader of the party.

Trump is willing to take down the Republican Party and everything it has ever stood for to make sure he is still the guy in charge. As the ship goes down or as the city falls, all of Trump supporters must still bow to him.

For Republicans, the only thing that still matters in this election is retaining the House of Representatives. It becomes more difficult for candidates to win their seats as Trump becomes a more terrible political entity.

Conservatives are having to fight for their own identity, but Trump makes it exponentially worse. He called those who try to shift away from him as “self-righteous hypocrites.”

This need for loyalty has been destroying the party and the idea of conservatism for a long time. Trump, who is not a Republican, doesn’t care about the ideas he holds dear except himself.

Trump is destroying the Republican Party for, at least, a generation.

Senior staff columnist Jorden Smith is a political science junior and president of the College Republicans. He can be reached at [email protected]