Nothing like Donald Trump has ever hit a major American political party: A blow-dried celebrity gleefully smashing one modern Republican certainty after the other. As he defies his own party on tax orthodoxy, on healthcare and on bending a knee to Roger Ailes, he’s exposed the GOP establishment as virtually powerless over its own nominating process.

His rise has now created a split so deep that it’s not clear how the party is going to recover. Some conservatives are trying to crush his candidacy, others are finally embracing him, and they're all lobbing grenades at each other. So is this the end of the GOP as we know it? And what’s next?


National Interest editor Jacob Heilbrunn sees Trump's disruption as just the reboot the party needs; Republican strategist Rick Wilson sees a possible “murder-suicide” between Trump and Cruz that opens the door for moderates. Former Senate operative Jim Manley sees a party civil war that will sow chaos far beyond the GOP.

Here, for Politico Magazine, 12 political gurus put their minds to the most unexpectedly urgent big-picture question in American politics.

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Did Trump kill the GOP? He might have saved it.

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of the National Interest

Donald Trump definitely represents a dire threat to the future of the GOP elite, but not to the Republican Party. In fact, he may be the only candidate who can save the faltering contraption from itself. Far from being an outlier, he offers a chance for the party to rebrand itself. His most recent tiff with Fox News, where he refused to heed its debate ukase that he submit himself to the questioning of Megyn Kelly, is simply his latest swipe at the Politburo that has come to control the GOP. Probably only Trump can break with the political correctness that surrounds the GOP and return it to older, mainstream Republican traditions in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt or Richard Nixon. Whether it’s foreign or domestic policy, the establishment candidates are retreads who piously mouth the shibboleths of the discredited George W. Bush administration: A return to a crusading foreign policy. Stepped up national surveillance at home. Massive increases in defense spending. And an even more punitive approach to social issues, including a ban on abortion in the case of rape or incest. This is supposed to be mainstream moderation?

Trump’s detractors on the right fear his unpredictability: The Wall Street Journal editorial page complained on Thursday that “on politics and policy he is a leap into the known unknown.” Well, yes. It’s precisely Trump’s lubricity that is allowing him to transcend the GOP’s parochial ideological battles that would almost certainly lead the party to defeat in November. With his penchant for making a deal, Trump might well veer toward the middle once the primaries are over—or even before then. There’s no real evidence that he’s a true-blue conservative—or much of anything other than a shrewdly calculating and pragmatic opportunist. Ted Cruz, by contrast, would take the party to the right and also pursue a more realpolitik foreign policy, but he wouldn’t smash the crockery like Trump.

Here, as Trump might say, is the deal: Looked at as a business, the GOP is an enterprise that has been so badly managed that it needs to go into receivership before its current management team drives it into Chapter 11. And if Trump does win the nomination, don’t expect the party to rebel or engage in civil war. Instead, most of his critics will docilely line up and say they’ve been there all along.

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Trump has no fans outside his fan club.

Rick Wilson is a national Republican message and media strategist.

The “establishment” is more fearsome when it’s a talk-radio and Trumpbart bogeyman than it is in practice. The party doesn’t pick the candidate, contrary to popular myth. The party is legally and politically bound not to put their finger on the scale in the primary. It has to be won. Trump is splitting off the Troll Party faction from the GOP, but at the end of the day, the process of a shock like this will bring about political equilibrium. It’s under-appreciated that what folks wanted from RNC chairman Reince Preibus when they elected him was for him to be an honest broker, and he has been. The Party will survive. What’s the alternative? A constellation of venal, kleptocratic scamPACs conning granny of her $10 and keeping $9 it for “consulting”?

A truck at a campaign stop outside Houston, NH. | AP Photo

Trump’s status is less that of an outsider than a celebrity game-show host who’s been lofted on the winds of gushing, constant, media coverage. Ted Cruz has staked his campaign in Iowa, and the sudden turn by some in talk radio from cheerleading for Trump to cheerleading for Cruz hasn’t hurt his prospects. Neither man has fans outside their fan clubs, and I expect the winds to blow in Marco Rubio’s favor hard and fast if the Trump-Cruz bromance ends in the political version of a murder-suicide.

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It’s the end of an era, not the end of the party.

Margaret O’Mara, associate professor of history at the University of Washington

What’s happening to the GOP right now reminds me of what happened to the Democrats in 1968: The party establishment had lost credibility because of Vietnam, and a relatively obscure senator named Eugene McCarthy had grabbed headlines and passionate support because of his antiwar stance. McCarthy nearly beat incumbent LBJ in the New Hampshire primary, and days later the president had announced he wouldn’t run again, throwing the race open to the antiwar outsiders (including most notably former insider Robert Kennedy). By the time the Democrats got to the convention, all hell had broken loose. RFK was dead, Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies were levitating the Pentagon and nominating a pig for president, and protesters out in the streets of Chicago got brutally beat back by Mayor Daley’s police. The disintegration of the Dems, inside and outside the convention hall, all was captured by the hour on TV.

That was the end of an era for the Democratic Party, but not for the Democratic Party itself. So that may be a sign for us when we look at the GOP. The Trump insurgency is the Pentagon-levitation test of the Republican Party. Out of this may come a reinvention on par with what happened to the Democrats after ’68, where outsiders (like Jimmy Carter) take center stage, and a new generation of politicians willing to take on the sacred cows of party dogma (like Bill Clinton and the New Democrats) bring the party back to the White House.

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Ready for Bloomberg.

Douglas Schoen, founding partner and principal strategist for Penn, Schoen and Berland, and a former pollster for Bill Clinton.

The Republican Party has clearly lost its direction, and I dare say its soul. Anything Republican elites want, the base of the party instinctively opposes, as the rise of Trump and Cruz clearly demonstrates. Trump and Cruz have won support specifically because of the antipathy of the party establishment to both of them. The party dominates nationally with the exception of the presidency, yet is in danger of suffering an implosion and a possible (though not certain) historically large national loss.

That being said, one of the GOP’s great assets is a similar, though less extreme, process playing out in the Democratic Party. A large percentage of the Democratic base has rejected free market capitalism, which is at the core of how we organize our society and arguably guarantee and enhance our core values of freedom and liberty. The two leading Democratic presidential candidates are competing with one another to see who can demonstrate a greater commitment to redistributive politics and policies, instead of articulating a forward-looking vision for America.

I believe both parties are in a state of flux and fundamentally out of touch with what the broad mass of the American people wants: an inclusive pro-growth agenda and a cost effective social safety net, along with a politics built on results-oriented policies, instead of partisanship or ideology. Hence my strong commitment to prospective independent candidate Mike Bloomberg making a bid for the presidency.

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Trump’s status is less that of an outsider than a celebrity game-show host who’s been lofted on the winds of gushing, constant, media coverage.

A page from Trump’s playbook.

Ron Bonjean is a Republican strategist and a founding partner of the public affairs firm Rokk Solutions

Trump has caught the GOP establishment by surprise, and while many in the party disagree with his stances on immigration and religious litmus tests, they know he has tapped into the anger and frustration of many Americans in a way that no one has been able to do thus far. He will likely have trouble at this point building a broader coalition of voters that Obama achieved to win the presidency unless he morphs into a candidate more appealing to centrist voters.

The Republican Party is going to survive all of this, but it is moving through a transformational process in the primaries that could leave it split. Trump’s nomination could lead to a brokered convention: Many establishment Republicans could stand on the sidelines and refuse to help Trump, while others will reluctantly support him under the GOP banner. Their refusal to back him may not matter at all in the end if he is able to move to the center and succeed in getting broader appeal. However, a brokered convention is still a very real possibility because of the GOP fear that Trump would lose a general election because he has broadly alienated a wide variety of voters.

In any case Republicans of all stripes are taking lessons from Trump on how to dump the political cookie-cutter campaigns and directly connect with Americans in a way no else can. GOP Presidential races in the future will learn from the successes and mistakes of this cycle. One immediate is lesson is that only candidates that are aggressive in posture and tone without the manners of a politician will have an opportunity to rise above the rest and have a shot at the Oval Office.

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The damage will be limited.

Alan Abramowitz is professor of political science at Emory University.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the Republican Party’s demise are greatly exaggerated. Yes, a Trump or Cruz nomination could damage the GOP’s chances of regaining the presidency and might even cost them control of the Senate where there are a lot of potentially vulnerable Republican seats up this year. But the damage would be limited. There won’t be any major party split or walkout, although some of the party’s small remaining band of moderates might refuse to endorse a Trump or Cruz candidacy. This year won’t be like 1964 (when a large number of moderate Republican leaders refused to support Barry Goldwater) because the party as a whole is much more ideologically cohesive now—there are just very few moderates, let alone liberals, today. In 1964 there were a lot. And there won’t be an electoral blowout in November either. The vast majority of Republican voters hate President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton so intensely that they would not consider voting for her or for Democratic candidates for the House and Senate. The party divide is too great today. And if the Democrats are foolish enough to nominate Bernie Sanders, even Donald Trump or Ted Cruz might have a chance of winning.

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Check back with me in April.

Jim Feehery worked for the House Republican leadership from 1989 to 2005 and is president of QGA Public Affairs

It’s not over till the fat lady sings. And the Republican Party as we know it is not over until the voters get a chance to vote.

It is entirely possible that Donald Trump could be the GOP’s nominee but it is also entirely possible that he won’t be. I know what the polls say and, yes, it gives some reason for concern.

But I am not willing to concede that this election is over before the voters even have a chance to vote. I feel the same way about Ted Cruz, whose fundamental weaknesses are even more pronounced that Mr. Trump’s.

Check back with me in April. Then we can talk.

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It’s the voters’ fault!

Curt Anderson is a partner at OMI, a Republican consulting firm. He was an aide in the Reagan White House, former RNC political director, and strategist for Gov. Jindal’s presidential campaign.

Everyone keeps trying to assign blame for what has transpired in this election. It’s the donors’ fault, it’s the RNC’s fault, it’s Jeb’s fault, it’s Mike Murphy’s fault, etc. Certainly there is plenty of blame to go around. That said, I don’t know why we are beating around the bush here (no pun intended); the truth is this: It’s the voters’ fault! They are the ones who get to decide, and they tend to not be interested in taking direction from HQ in Washington, D.C. It’s as if everyone has thought—“oh, yes, the voters are really mad right now, but they will settle down eventually.” Wrong! They aren’t going to settle down, and they aren’t going to be told what to do. Here’s the problem with democracy: You get the representation you deserve.

I am not a fan of Mr. Trump (I don’t warm up to arrogance very well). But if he does win the nomination, and we have to choose between him or Hillary/Bernie, then we better remember that the country is currently headed into a very bad place, a place dominated by unpayable debts, a culture of government dependence, and international weakness. This all reminds me of the Louisiana governor’s race in 1991 between Edwin Edwards and David Duke. Edwards was a known crook, and Duke was a known racist, giving the voters a wonderful choice, and it really had nothing to do with which party label they were running on. This gave rise to the tremendous bumper sticker: “VOTE FOR THE CROOK: IT’S IMPORTANT.” So if Trump does win the nomination, I will produce bumper stickers that say, “VOTE FOR THE NARCISSIST: IT’S IMPORTANT.” That is all.

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On the contrary: Trump v. Cruz could actually save the GOP establishment.

Bill Scher, senior writer at the Campaign for America’s Future

Before the Republican establishment concludes that its party is being consumed by a hostile takeover, it should first let its people cast some votes. So many conclusions are being prematurely drawn based on poll numbers. Poll numbers are very sensitive to media coverage, and we’ve never had a media huckster par excellence run for president before. Sure, Donald Trump can goose poll numbers by dominating news cycles through outrageous antics. But we don’t know if that actually translates into votes, especially when there isn’t much evidence of a robust get-out-the-vote operation.

Supporters of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump listen to his speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., in January 2016. | AP Photo

Even adding the Trump and Cruz poll numbers together, to conclude that the conservative populist wing is larger than the establishment-friendly wing is a dangerous assumption. With Trump and Cruz running scorched-earth ads against each other, there is no guarantee that one camp’s supporters will easily migrate to the other.

At the moment, both wings of the party are divided. If Trump and Cruz stay divided, the establishment will be perfectly capable of reasserting control over the process by consolidating support around the mainstream candidate that performs best in the first few contests.

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A new kind of outsider.



Meg Jacobs, research scholar in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University

Donald Trump is a true outsider, a true political outsider. His meteoric rise, his staying power, and now his impending win in Iowa suggest that we have entered a new era of presidential candidates. Jeb Bush, the ultimate establishment candidate, is flailing and in Thursday’s last Republican debate before the primaries, it was the absence of Trump’s entertainment on stage that spoke far louder and garnered more attention than Bush’s solid performance and command of the details. Apparently, experience and detailed policy proposals are no longer what voters want; what they want is for Trump to come on stage and look at his competitors and say, “You’re fired.” His likely victory suggests we have moved beyond the era when a Jimmy Carter or a Ronald Reagan were considered outsiders; now we want someone who has no government experience at all.

Perhaps Trump’s lead, followed closely by Senator Ted Cruz, suggests that the Republican Party is moving hard to the right, with both GOP candidates capitalizing on nativist fears and employing scare mongering tactics. But in some ways that is not news. What is more striking is the commonalities between Trump and the other outsider candidate—the one in the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders. Of course, these two candidates’ politics have nothing in common. To Sanders, it is Trump and his money that best captures all that is wrong with today’s politics. But on closer inspection, Trump and Sanders do share one basic thing in common: their lack of inhibition. That is what defines Trump, and Sanders, too, as outsiders—neither has the usual politician filter, the one that lassos in the candidates, making them say well-rehearsed, media-tested soundbites. After all, Sanders went on national TV and told Americans he would raise their taxes. It is their willingness to say what is on their mind that voters in both parties find appealing.

The difference, however, in these two outsiders, is fundamental, and one that points to problems ahead not only for the GOP but also for the country. Whereas Sanders speaks his mind, deploring the influence of money in politics, Trump plays to the public’s baser instincts. While he is running as an outsider, he has defined his candidacy by redefining the boundaries about who belongs and who does not.

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The battle will be something to behold.

Bob Shrum, the Warschaw professor of the practice of politics at the University of Southern California, was a longtime Democratic strategist, speechwriter and media consultant.

In his Inaugural Address, JFK observed that “in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” The Republican Party rode the Tea Party, the alienated and the angry to power in the House and then the Senate in 2010 and 2014. Now the party is paying the price of folly as the same forces take over the nominating process. It is telling that the candidate who has a chance to stop Trump in Iowa is the misanthropic Ted Cruz, who, as Bob Dole says, would lead the GOP down to “cataclysmic” defeat. So would the bloviating Trump.

In the aftermath, with another Democrat—likely another Clinton—in the White House, Republicans will struggle with a fateful choice about their future. Can they reshape themselves, as Bill Clinton persuaded Democrats to do in 1992? Can they accept a demographically and culturally transformed America and offer a conservatism fit for the 21st century? Or driven by the religious right and those resentful of and resistant to the emergence of a majority non-white society that fully respects the rights of minorities, women and gays, will they just dig the party deeper into a hole from which they probably can never reach the White House? If Trump—or Cruz—prevails, the campaign after the campaign, waged inside the GOP, will be something to behold.

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It’s a civil war that could have casualties beyond the GOP.

Jim Manley is former communications adviser and spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, onetime press secretary for Sen. Ted Kennedy and current director, Communications Practice with QGA Public Affairs.

Over the last year or so I have been more than willing to agree that there are divisions within the Democratic Party when it comes, for instance, to dealing with Wall Street. However, the divisions between the more progressive and moderate wings of my party pale in comparison to what is going on within the Republican ranks.

I honestly don’t think it is an understatement for anyone to suggest that what is going in is a civil war for the heart and soul of the party. And while part of me loves nothing more to watch Republicans tear themselves apart, as someone who watches Congress closely I am seriously concerned about the impact this debate is having on the ability for Congress to get anything done. Neither Trump nor Cruz has any idea how to legislate. Saying that you are going to build a wall between the United States and Mexico and make the Mexican government pay for it is not a real solution, while Cruz is so unpopular within his own party his own Senate colleagues want him to lose. What is going on does not bode well for this country and its people.