Insurgent front-runner Donald Trump's victories in the Michigan and Mississippi presidential primaries and the Hawaii caucuses this week underscore how much the Republican Party's elites are under assault. But the situation isn't unique. Historians say the rough-and-tumble campaign of 1912 provides a good parallel to what is happening today, and that battle didn't end well for the Republicans.

There are similarities to 1964, when Republican Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater engineered a hard-line conservative takeover of the GOP. Goldwater went on to lose the general election overwhelmingly to incumbent Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. And there are similarities to 1976, when former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California, popular among hard-line conservatives, took on moderate incumbent and establishment favorite Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination. Ford hadn't been elected on his own; he had succeeded President Richard Nixon, who resigned amid the Watergate scandal. Reagan lost the nomination to Ford, but the struggle weakened the incumbent and he lost the general election. Reagan returned in 1980 to win the White House as a conservative icon.

But the most clear parallel is to 1912, when, then as now, a celebrity candidate swept in and threw the GOP establishment off balance. It was Theodore Roosevelt, a showman if ever there was one, like Trump today.

Then-Vice President Roosevelt had succeeded the assassinated President William McKinley in 1901, and was elected on his own in 1904. He was thought to be the favorite in 1908 but kept a pledge he had made earlier and didn't run. Roosevelt endorsed William Howard Taft, who served as his secretary of war, as his Republican successor and Taft won.

But Roosevelt became increasingly disenchanted with Taft, who departed from his policies, refusing to attack the big trusts as Roosevelt had done and backing away from preserving large tracts of federal land from development, which was one of Roosevelt's signature initiatives. Meanwhile, as Taft's presidency continued, Roosevelt became increasingly a global celebrity, cheered wherever he went and capable of drawing huge crowds who liked his vigorous, forceful approach to leadership and found him immensely entertaining, as many Americans do with Donald Trump today. This celebrity provided further encouragement for Roosevelt to seek the White House again.

He ran in 1912 but the Republican establishment, which had considered Roosevelt too extreme as president, embarrassed him and nominated Taft again. "He threw a righteous tantrum," says Rice University history professor Douglas Brinkley, and abandoned the GOP. Instead, he campaigned as the nominee of the Progressive or Bull Moose Party. Such a scenario is possible again this year if the Republican establishment denies Trump the nomination and he gives up on the GOP with his own independent campaign.

Roosevelt capitalized on his celebrity. At the Progressive Party convention in Chicago, Roosevelt formally abandoned the Republicans and accepted the third party's nomination with a stirring speech. He declared that "we stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord." When he said he felt "as strong as a Bull Moose," that became the nickname for his new political vehicle – the Bull Moose Party – and it stuck. He supported many liberal policies such as a minimum wage for women, an eight-hour workday and a fledgling national health-care system, and advocated the use of the federal government to protect everyday people from abuses by big business.

One incident during the 1912 campaign dramatized his appeal. Roosevelt insisted on finishing a campaign address even though a would-be assassin had just shot him in the chest. The bullet had been slowed down by a thick speech text he had in his coat pocket.

Roosevelt won 27.4 percent of the popular vote and 88 votes in the Electoral College, finishing second to Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson, who had 41.8 percent of the vote and 435 electoral votes. Taft came in third with 23.1 percent and eight electoral votes. It was a better showing than any subsequent third-party or independent presidential candidate would make since then.

"Trump and Theodore Roosevelt were a cult of personality," says Brinkley. "They were running on their persona." Both were unpredictable and entertaining and separated themselves from the business-oriented, staid approach of the Republican Party of their day, although Roosevelt was basically a progressive and Trump is basically a conservative. Roosevelt advocated – and Trump does, too – a muscular foreign policy; Roosevelt said he wanted to "speak softly but carry a big stick." This is similar to Trump's approach today with a special emphasis on the stick.

"We are a country that appreciates the individual," and Americans admire leaders "who say what they really believe," and have "outsized personalities," Brinkley says. For many in 1912, Teddy Roosevelt filled the bill, as Trump does today.