To my way of thinking, this board is generally a microcosm of the conservative base of GOP. Some of us pull one way, others another. Basically we want the same things, but we disagree on the methods. In reality, we do reflect what's been going on with the GOP for many years.

Some want to somehow turn the party into one that can make the federal government reflect their values and beliefs, turning those into laws that will ensure that their will be done. They want a strong federal government that reflects their values. They want their values encoded in law.

Others want the federal government to be fundamentally changed returned to something restricted by checks and balances and a federated system as laid out in the Constitution-something it hasn't been since the Civil War. Pretty much the federal government should be limited to war, borders, interstate issues, coinage, treaties, etc.

A split is inevitable methinks. Unlike the Democrats we are not going to somehow come to the meeting of the minds.

Trump isn't the problem, his statements and themes have caused those schisms to show themselves and YES the democrats are enjoying this. Conservatives? Not so much.

I'm pretty sure, have actually thought so for at least 3 election cycles, that there is going to be a 3rd party.

Here's an article related to this line of thought-forget the title, this is not being posted as a 'Trump sucks' post. While Trump may be the lightening rod, he's a symptom-not the cause. The rift is likely to cause a 3rd party, it would happen whether he's there or not:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...html?nopager=1

Donald Trump, a One-Man Wedge Issue, Threatens GOP Future

9:50 AM, AUG 10, 2015 • BY FRED BARNES

Republicans have been slow in recognizing the real damage Donald Trump is doing to their party. The harm is not to the party’s image. What Trump has done is exacerbate the increasingly bitter rift between the party’s leaders and its grass roots. He’s made the GOP’s future dicey.


The quarter of the Republican electorate Trump has attracted consists largely of this alienated group. Since he voices their resentment of Republican elites – especially their arch-enemies in Congress – he’s become their champion. And champions are hard to dethrone.

Trump doesn’t have to run as an independent to be a serious troublemaker. As long as he stays in the GOP race, the split in the party is likely to deepen and primaries may turn into nasty and divisive contests. And imagine if he wins enough delegates to disrupt the Republican convention by making demands. The media would again make him the center of attention.

“The Republican party created Donald Trump, because they made lot of promises to their base and never kept them,” Erick Erickson, the conservative editor of RedState, told Molly Ball of the Atlantic.

Erickson is right. “At this point, most of the people I encounter on radio and on the internet, they’re not really people who at the end of the day want to vote for Donald Trump,” Erickson said. “But they sure do like that he’s burning down the Republican Party that never listened to them to begin with.”

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