Politics –
Divorce: GOP Ready To Dump Drumpf

After a shotgun wedding ceremony merely a month ago, the honeymoon period between Donald (Drumpf) Trump and the GOP appears all but over.  Party officials have had enough and, citing “irreconcilable differences,” are already talking DIVORCE from “The Donald.”

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Talk of a one-sided divorce came to a head on Friday, when the Republican National Committee had a “Come to Jesus” meeting in Orlando with the Trump campaign.  The GOP’s warning:  they’re ready to cut all ties with their presidential nominee and divert resources and support to at-risk House and Senate candidates, in the interest of saving face…and the party.  The GOP believes that any further attempts to “fix” the Trump candidacy is a lesson in futility, that Trump is already destined to lose horribly in November, and that the party’s only hope of salvation is to concede the White House and save what few congressional seats they can just to avoid an embarrassing landslide.

Today’s Grand Ol’ Party is like a once glorious mansion being burned to the ground by the family’s crazed arsonist — except the house is now so engulfed in flames, it’s much too late to race upstairs and save the priceless family gem. At this point, the only realistic scenario is to grab the TV, grab an iPhone, and maybe a favorite T-shirt, then run like hell out of there.

Thanks to Donald Trump, that’s exactly what the GOP is doing.  He set fire to the party with his divisive antics.  Now that it’s too late to save anything but mere trinkets, the GOP is salvaging whatever they can and running like hell out of there.

The in-party disdain for Trump is unprecedented and impossible to ignore. Less than a month after the Trump coronation, Republicans up for reelection don’t show up to meet Trump’s plane at the airport.  Nor do they dare appear on the same stage with him at campaign rallies. Either action would be a cancerous risk they’re simply unwilling to take.

To date, more than 100 prominent Republicans have gone on record urging RNC chairman Reince Priebus to cut its losses with Donald Trump and devote cash and infrastructure into saving congressional majorities. According to a recent Time Magazine article, Priebus is near his breaking point and about ready to pull the plug.

“Based on his campaign record, there’s no chance he’s going to win,” said Sara Fagen, the political director for former President George W. Bush. “He’s losing groups of people he can’t get back.”

“He can’t simply continue to preach to the choir and think he’s going to put together a coalition that will win the White House,” added Ryan Williams, a party strategist and former aide to Mitt Romney. “He’s essentially guaranteeing that he will lose by refusing to clean up his mistakes and stop committing future ones.”

If the GOP does in fact divorce itself from their recently-anointed nominee, it will be the death knell for the Trump candidacy. So, why have they been slow to sign off on a divorce from “The Donald?” The answer is very simple: MONEY. Although Trump has failed miserably in raising money for himself, he has surprisingly exceeded expectations in raising money for the GOP. Therefore, the remnants of the relationship are no longer about love, but simply about the almighty dollar.

In discussing an impending divorce from Donald Trump, former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber said: “They’re going to do it sooner or later. They might as well do it sooner to have more impact.”

That move is widely expected by Labor Day when the GOP should have the financial stability to make divorce a reality.  It’s also a date that would be too late for Trump to flee the party and launch an Independent bid on his own. He’d be forced to just grin and bear it.

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In an attempt to simply get the farcical candidacy of Trump to the finish line, the GOP recently launched a “babysitting service” for their nominee. Reince Priebus, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other party elders have taken to traveling everywhere Trump goes to serve as responsible adult chaperones, just to prevent him from saying and/or doing more dumb shit that would further damage the party.

It’s a move made out of sheer necessity.

Within the past 7 days, Trump has questioned the advice of senior aides, threatened to stop raising money for the party, dismissed the usefulness of get-out-the-vote efforts and defended his decision not to run any television ads… all while Mrs. Clinton continuously fills the airwaves in several contested states using Trump’s own words and actions against him.  This doesn’t even take into account his wild claims that President Obama is the founder of ISIS ( a claim he pressed hard, then walked back, then pressed hard again).

Needless to say, the mood over at Trump Tower is not as rosy and cheery as “The Donald” wants everyone to believe. Like the rest of the world, Trump’s staff is bewildered by his political naiveté. They describe their boss as a candidate who doesn’t understand the basics of modern campaigns, including why he needs a ground game and must knock on doors, as well as how to read a poll. Although these staff members continue to cash checks, they have begun to lose faith that their boss can or even should win the presidency.

“You’re always afraid of getting fired,” said one staffer, “but it’s his fault, not ours.”

In fact, a recent New York Times article cited “interviews with more than 20 Republicans who are close to Mr. Trump or in communication with his campaign, many of whom insisted on anonymity to avoid clashing with him.” These sources “described their nominee as exhausted, frustrated and still bewildered by fine points of the political process and why his incendiary approach seems to be sputtering.”

The article also noted that “in private, Mr. Trump’s mood is often sullen and erratic, his associates say. He veers from barking at members of his staff to grumbling about how he was better off following his own instincts during the primaries and suggesting he should not have heeded their calls for change.”

For someone who touts himself as a winner and once promised that when he’s elected, Americans would “win so much, you’re gonna get tired of winning,” a bitter Trump appears anything but a winner.

Recognizing the writing on the wall and realizing that a GOP divorce and an epic loss are likely inevitable, Trump has already begun to set up his losing defense: CHEATING.  In recent days, Trump has started adding to his stump speech the narrative that the “liberal media” is biased against him and that some unknown force is “rigging” the election.

“The only way we can lose, in my opinion — I really mean this, Pennsylvania — is if cheating goes on,” Trump said late last week. “Help me stop crooked Hillary from rigging this election.”

The argument is his only hope of saving face and maintaining relevance among his thousands of blinded supporters after the expected loss.

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“I don’t know why we’re not leading by a lot,” Trump recently told a crowd of thousands in Florida, where supporters boldly displayed a Confederate flag emblazoned with the Trump 2016 logo (it was quickly removed by Trump’s adult “babysitters,” who feared yet another public backlash from the negative television image).

Perhaps Trump is not leading because he doesn’t realize rally crowds are not the equivalent of electoral votes, or that he’s still “singing to the choir” by sticking with his divisive and race-baiting primary rhetoric instead of broadening his appeal to a general electorate, or that he’s getting crushed by the minority voting blocs of blacks, Hispanics and young women — all groups that Trump has spent a great deal of time railing against.

Still, “The Donald” seems hell-bent on doing things his way.  When asked by Time Magazine how he feels about the very likely scenario of an election night loss for him and the entire Republican Party, Trump said: “All I can do is tell the truth. I’ll just keep doing the same thing I’m doing right now. And at the end, it’s either going to work, or I’m going to, you know, I’m going to have a very, very nice, long vacation.”

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OK WASSUP! covers politics. Today’s article:
The GOP is ready to DIVORCE Donald Trump.