Donald Trump represents the party base. Leaders must finally admit it

[applegrove]

Donald Trump represents the party base. Leaders must finally admit it

by Lucia Graves at the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/06/donald-trump-republican-voter-base-gop-leaders-denial

"SNIP................



The Republican electorate chose Trump. And now that he is the presumed candidate for president, it is the party establishment that must make a choice: To Donald or not to Donald?

The trouble for them all is that to hate Donald Trump has become synonymous with hating their own electorate. It’s no longer a question of supporting Donald Trump: it’s a question of supporting the people they’re presumed to represent.

The beauty and the horror of Trump is that he tells people what he thinks they want to hear, and his genius is knowing precisely what that is. He’s done a better job of reading the GOP base than anyone in the party and, ever the salesman, he’s selling himself in the image of his electorate’s values.

Trump’s populist message on the economy, trade deals and national security (he was against the Iraq war and appears to be largely non-interventionist) coupled with a generous dose of racism, sexism and xenophobia is the most accurate portrait we have of what Republican voters actually think, feel and want to see represented. And many in the Republican leadership, perhaps sensing that this is a losing general election strategy, are by turns discouraged and embarrassed.



................SNIP"