If Trump Loses, Can the GOP Survive?

The party risks failing at a basic function.

By James Taranto

Something of a debate has broken out among Nevertrump commentators over how big a loss to hope for in November. The Atlantic’s David Frum makes the case that a decisive defeat would be preferable to a catastrophic one—or, as he puts it, it would be good if Donald Trump were “to rise from Goldwater debacle to respectable Dukakis defeat”:

The difference between a Goldwater and Dukakis outcome is the difference between holding a Republican majority in at least one chamber of Congress and a down-ballot deluge that would open the way to a new bout of Democratic legislative activism.

One may question the premise: There have been Goldwater-order defeats without down-ballot routs (1972, 1984) and Dukakis-size ones with them (2008 and arguably 1980).

Still, Frum’s view here is wiser than that of the Nevertrumps who hope for total humiliation, such as George Will. In April Will wrote a column urging “conservatives” both to engineer a 50-state Democratic presidential landslide as “condign punishment” for Trump and “to save from the anti-Trump undertow as many senators, representatives, governors and state legislators as possible.” If conservatives had the power and the inclination to do both those things, Trump would not be the Republican nominee.

This column rejects the premise that Trump is certain to lose, although we’ll concede that on current evidence he is likelier than not to do so. But lately another question has been preoccupying us: If Trump does lose, can the Republican Party survive?

Will seemed to think so back in April, when he claimed that if Trump loses big, “Republicans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party.” Will himself publicly rejected that identity two months later, telling PJMedia he was no longer a Republican. But anyway our question isn’t about whether the Republican “identity” can survive; it’s whether the party can.

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