A few weeks ago I despaired that the Trump monster had grown so outrageous that the GOP had no choice but to find a way to push him off a cliff and have one of their own get the nomination.

[By the way, the possibility of a brokered convention such as hasn’t been seen in our lifetimes strikes this history buff as completely fascinating. The cut and dried, commercially packaged conventions we’re used to bare no resemblance to what was common at one time with bargaining, in fighting, dozens of ballots and the nomination completely up for grabs for several action packed days.]

However, there are two tantalizing possibilities that could bring the slow boil of GOP schism up to a full frothing:

1. Trump is simply too powerful, and his followers too loyal to bypass; and
2. If they do bypass him he goes independent.

he had made noises about that months ago and then he took the oath he wouldn’t, but now he’s roaring again and the GOP is cowering in a corner.

In either scenario the GOP goes into 2016 with the potential to fall below 40%. Obviously an independent run would split Republican and conservative votes in a way that would doom them. But if they appease Trump and he is the nominee, continuing to campaign with the crazy set up to 11, then his ceiling for attracting the independents the GOP needs, not to win, but to make a respectable showing, is in question.

As I’ve noted before, demographics point away from another 53-47 election unless the GOP nominates someone way more attractive than Mitt Romney or John McCain was. Right now 1-2% of people who voted GOP in 2008 and 2012 are already off the voter rolls due to death. Some number more have simply stopped self-identifying as Republican.

There is no way on Earth that a Trump candidacy breaks 45% and I am being very generous.

A disastrous 2016 and/or a true party schism is the only way to give the Kevorkian treatment the Republican Party so deserves.

I am once again hopeful that Schismas is coming!!

Merry Schismas!!!!

P.S. Actually I lied, for my lifetime anyway, the 1976 GOP convention was a brokered convention. Reagan and Ford went to the convention with differing counts of delegates, both claiming to have enough for the nomination. Ford did have the edge, but both were unsure and bluffing while making all sorts of backroom deals and appeals to delegations to solidify behind one candidate.