As Donald Trump stays way out front in the Republican nomination race, the party hierarchy is in full fret and could have run out of time to stop its current worst nightmare. The next few days will be crucial for the party base, and the privileged old guard.
On the cusp of Super Tuesday - when 14 states and American Samoa vote for their Democrat or Republican Presidential candidate, the stench of panic within the Republican party over the rise of its own bastard child is all pervasive.
There is much chat about how Donald Trump has rewritten all the rules in US politics, but he hasn’t really.
He is just capitalizing on the rise of the anti-politics politicking that has been an accepted part of the Republican Party for at least a decade.
The Tea Party is a perfect example of Republicans, marginalized by their own elites, who acted on the realization that they could put a very big cog in the Washington wheel by backing people who either had little or no political/executive experience.
Cue Sarah Palin.
And it seems that when the likes of Palin fail utterly, the grassroots don’t go hobbling back to their party royalty in the hope of having a say.
They go feral. Frighteningly so for the party.
The golden boy of the party base has turned politics into an event. He has made it entertaining, and in the fantasy world of so-called ‘reality tv’, they have a circus master who appears larger than life, is rich, and because he is in charge he can say all the things they really want to say but wouldn’t dare in public.
His rallies are more like sports events...you can even have a beer as you cheer for the eviction of any unbelievers, for the denigration of the ‘other’, for the building of walls, the smashing of Putin, the unravelling of trade and nuclear deals....and on and on.
Policy is irrelevant...all that matters is ours is going to be tougher, much tougher, bigger, much bigger, so big and so tough you wouldn’t believe it.
What is terrifying the party establishment is that Trump has sucked in the last standing competition to his modus operandi.
The last debate was a slug fest of infantile proportions.
Are these supposedly grown men really Presidential material when they slag each other off for troweling on the make-up back stage, or requesting full length mirrors in case they have wet their pants, or mimicking each others‘ mannerisms or less than appealing physical attributes.
It is no wonder that the Republican aristocracy is showing signs of wetting its own collective pants.
A desperate mission to try and stop Trump may well have been launched, but the party needs to look at its own behaviour before lashing out at everyone else for the potential routing by Trump (and his now best mate and obviously Vice-Presidential hopeful, Chris Christie).
Attacking Trump - at this stage their leading candidate, is the very essence of why he is in front.
The base of the party feels ignored and the (mostly) men in suits with eons of years in cushy jobs at the top have developed cloth ears.
The arrogance is giving rise to a consideration of snatching the nomination from Trump if there is no single front runner going into their convention.
In order to try and bolster the chances of Marco Rubio - the only candidate left who they believe to be remotely plausible in an election - senior Republicans are trying to get the likes of John Kasich to pull out. Take one for the team John.
John’s not interested.
The belligerent, arrogant, self-serving, fact free Trump is actually very behaviour du jour for the Grand Old Party, if it’s attitude towards the incumbent President is any measure.
From the Obama get go, the Republicans have focused on blocking every initiative he puts forward - no matter how it might benefit the US economy, its foreign policy standing or, heaven forbid, everyday Americans.
And now, with just under year of Obama’s tenure to run, the Republicans have decided that they are not only above convention, but the Constitution which they harp on and on about as the line that will never be crossed.
By refusing to even hold a hearing for an Obama nominee to the Supreme Court to replace Antonin Scalia - a judge so mired in the absolute word of the Constitution that his views on modern day life were somewhat strange - the Republican naysayers are making a mockery of that very Constitution.
Their reason - the cannot permit “this President” to make an appointment that the people should be making.
Never mind that the people have made that choice. They elected this President twice and it is his constitutional duty to nominate.
Their fear of a political change in the conservative balance on the Court is so great that they are prepared to make a mockery of their own supposedly beyond reproach Constitution.
It is no wonder the base has lost faith.
Perhaps a Trump nomination would do them all a lot of good.