Other clues: There were no signs of a struggle. The walls were adorned with posters of “Crooked Hillary,” blueprints for an unbuilt wall and promises to rein in Wall Street.

Ruling: political suicide. But was it? There is still the question of motive.

The motive: Why would a political party continue to press so hard on tax cuts for the rich when everyone had come to understand that no more than 1 percent of voters wanted them? Why would a party argue so vehemently for budget discipline, only to then turn its back on its professed core principles? Why would a party have spent the past several decades investing in a crazed embrace of lies about who benefits from tax cuts, and race-tinged accusations about its opponents to secure election to pass those tax cuts, just to end up here, on the floor, felled in the prime of life? Does that make any sense?

AD

AD

Other suspects: Always begin with the lover. And who was the lover in this instance? The 1 percent! And who benefited from this relationship? The 1 percent! And who was left all the money in the last will and tax bill? That’s right. The 1 percent!

Is it possible that the 1 percent, despite all the outward appearances of being so fervently in love with the Republican Party, was merely a gold digger?? Is it possible that the 1 percent, in fact, didn’t care about the health, integrity or long-term viability of this once-proud beast? Is it possible that the 1 percent merely USED the GOP to advance its own interests, up until but not past the point that it had obtained everything there was to get out of the party?