Will Republicans Hold Their Noses and Unify Around Trump?

You could hear the cries of “no!” from the audience last night before Ted Cruz even got the words out that he was quitting the race.

The funny thing is, among Ted Cruz’s “supporters” at the end of his campaign were people who didn’t really like Ted Cruz much at all. He had become the last hope of the Stop Trump movement. But by the end of the night, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus had declared Donald Trump the party’s “presumptive nominee”:

Now that Ohio Gov. John Kasich has followed Cruz’s lead and also suspended his campaign, there’s no room for doubt, no hope for a contested convention. The Republican Party is saddled with Trump, whether they like him or not.

Unification is easier said than done. Within a few hours of Cruz’s announcement, RedState.com editor Leon Wolf had published an article with the headline, “#NeverTrump Means Never Trump. Never Ever.”

“For anyone who wants to know what’s next for the #NeverTrump movement,” Wolf wrote, “the answer is that we don’t vote for Trump.”

“#NeverTrump means different things to different people except for one thing,” he went on. “It means we will not vote for Trump, not ever. And nothing that’s happened tonight has changed that.”

Some people will vote for a third-party candidate or not vote at all, Wolf wrote. He told the Daily Beast, “If it’s a competitive election, I probably will be compelled to vote for Hillary.”

He’s not alone.

Jamie Weinstein, senior editor of the conservative Daily Caller, made clear which choice he’ll opt for, giving the mother of all back-handed endorsements to Hillary Clinton: “In a White House race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I’d prefer Clinton, just as I’d prefer Malaria to Ebola.”

“In most cases, Malaria is curable,” he elaborated. “Ebola is more often deadly.”

Former John McCain speechwriter Mark Salter tweeted, “I’m with her,” in reference to Hillary Clinton.

All the Republican presidential candidates have taken, and rescinded, pledges to support the eventual party nominee. In his concession speech, Cruz spoke of his “boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation,” but didn’t make any such claims about the short term, and he didn’t bother making any conciliatory gestures toward Donald Trump.

The New York Times’ editorial board declared somberly Wednesday morning, “It’s Donald Trump’s Party Now.” They called him “the most volatile and least prepared presidential candidate nominated by a major party in modern times.”

He’s also the most unpopular major party candidate in recent memory, meaning that even Republicans do unite around him, they’ll likely wind up with egg on their faces come November. Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia Center for Politics predicts a drubbing in November – 347 electoral votes for Clinton versus 191 for Trump, an even bigger margin than President Obama’s over Romney in 2012. The party will have to reckon not just with the failure of a candidate but its support for one accused of demagoguery and trafficking in hate.

After Donald Trump is finished remaking the Republican Party in his own image, will the GOP be able to dust itself off, move forward with its big-tent outreach plans, and pretend 2016 never happened?

Trump himself has exhorted Republican leaders to unify, telling them to “embrace these millions of people that now, for the first time ever, love the Republican Party.” But he hasn’t toned down the offensive rhetoric that’s alienated 7 out of 10 women in the United States and nearly 9 out of 10 Latinos.

Some Republicans are coming around, however reluctantly.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) conference just two months ago, Republican campaign consultant Mike Madrid warned that a Donald Trump candidacy would be a “disaster” and would doom the GOP with Latino voters – the very voters the party had set out to attract after Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election -- for “at least a generation.”

But after Cruz threw in the towel, Madrid told the #NeverTrump crowd over Twitter to “hang it up... looking pathetic now.”

And Ari Fleischer, who served as President George Bush’s press secretary during his first term, tweeted:

Within 15 hours, that tweet had been shared more than 1,700 times.

Several Republicans, including party powerhouses like Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt and Arizona Sen. John McCain, have said they’ll be skipping the GOP convention in July. Some blame their own busy campaign schedules, but some have made it clear that their absence is more of a boycott. Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona said if the convention is just “a Trump coronation,” he sees “no reason to go.”

“I suspect the party will attempt to unify in a very lukewarm way, but they will focus more of their energy on the Senate and congressional elections,” said political science professor Melinda Frederick of Prince George’s Community College outside of Washington, D.C. “Sort of like families with internal turmoil, they will put on a face to the outside world.”

Frederick notes that Trump has a big opportunity coming up to consolidate support among more mainstream Republicans. His choice of a running mate will telegraph his intentions, either to woo the GOP establishment or even make amends with women and minorities by adding some diversity to the ticket.

It may not be enough to redeem him in the eyes of some Republicans. You can find pictures of burning GOP voter registration cards over on Twitter.

Photo by Gage Skidmore.