Everyone in the media is talking about how the Republican Party is collapsing. I think it's just become undeniable the Republican Party cannot be what it once was, what it wants to be, and what it was hoping it still might be. I don't think the collapse of the Republican Party started in 2016, or in 2014 or 2012 during the elections during which the Tea Party swept into success. I think the Republican Party started collapsing after the United States started gradually losing faith in their competence after the second term of George W. Bush. I think W. was the worst president in modern American history, at least since Nixon. As a Canadian, I have a different perspective, so maybe most Americans would disagree with me, but I think W. was even worse than Nixon. I'd venture W. might be the worst president in the post-War era, and I only say that because the pre-War era was a sufficiently different time, and also because I don't know the history well enough, to feel comfortable making predictions which go before that. I don't think it would be too hard for someone who knew their American history better to convince me W. was the worst president of the last 100 years, and one of the worst of all time.
Sure, there are plenty of Americans who feel every politician and Obama as well are wiping their butts with the Constitution, but there is still enough of a coherent core left of centre that the Democratic Party hasn't been imploding for the last 8 years, and isn't imploding right now.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." As a modernist who has observed the quality of life in the developed world achieve wonders we're all lucky to have, I'm much opposed to bloody revolutions which would threaten all that is stable in democracies with elections that still work. However, I am glad Donald Trump is causing a crisis and a revolution in the Republican Party that is causing the spirit of the old guard to stare into the face of its doom. To cleanse the establishment so seems important enough sometimes I think it's worth the trade of putting Trump in the White House if the Republican Party dies. Barring authoritarian nightmare scenarios, Trump will only be the crazy President of the United States for four years until he's booted out in 2020, and then the Republican Party will be dead. As long as Trump can't succeed in violating human rights left, right and centre, his winning the Republican nomination for the Presidency might be good insofar as this will destroy the Republican Party and it will prevent a dangerous fundamentalist like W. from returning to the White House for a very long time as well.
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