Trump once said on the campaign trail that he would approve of torture as President, “even if it doesn’t work.” With four weeks left to Election Day, he seemed to be testing the proposition on the public. Unshackled, he flirted with unhinged and erased the emollient line between a campaign aimed at the base and one intended to debase.
When protesters gathered outside the party’s white brick headquarters on Capitol Hill, the organizer turned out to be Trump’s Virginia campaign chairman. One sign waved at the RNC offices read, Better to grab a p-ssy than to be one.
Election Day “could be the start of the real civil war,” warns Kevin Sheridan, a GOP consultant and former adviser to Ryan. “Not the end of it.”
Trump’s stump speech is a sort of jazz riff, and one of his favorite themes involves reciting the lyrics of an old soul anthem, “The Snake,” a parable about the dangers of showing too much compassion to strangers. To the delight of his Wilkes-Barre audience, he wove it into this rally. “Oh shut up, silly woman,” Trump quoted. “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.” Trump uses the tune to illustrate the dangers of welcoming Syrian refugees. But it can also be read as a rebuke to the GOP for letting Trump into the tent.
GOP caucus campaign chief Greg Walden told lobbyists the same day that Trump could be a drag in every race around the country.
It all points to a Republican civil war that is, if anything, just getting under way. “The fight you’re seeing now is a preview of what you’re going to see on steroids after the election”
“There’s going to be a schism”
thrice-married playboy who once said he had never asked God for forgiveness
Trump has exposed the disconnect between evangelicals’ words and their political deeds.
Trump is unlikely to recede from the spotlight. This campaign has cemented him as a star. GOP insiders from all points on the party’s ideological spectrum predict he may use his notoriety to launch a branded news outlet for his fervent fans.
