The GOP is now the Party of Trump

There was a time not so long ago when the political establishment of the Republican Party – the Mitt Romneys, Paul Ryans, and Lindsey Grahams of the world – were strong Donald Trump antagonists.  Trump would utter a racially charged remark about a Mexican-American district court judge being biased against him because he was Mexican, and Speaker Ryan would blast the comment as ‘the definition of a racist comment’.  Lindsey Graham, an also-ran in the 2016 GOP presidential primary, acted like a South Carolina preacher with a southern drawl, warning Republican voters of how dangerous Trump would be as Commander-in-Chief.  When the infamous Access Hollywood rape surfaced three weeks before the 2016 election, Paul Ryan threw up his hands and told fellow Republican lawmakers that he would no longer campaign for Trump.  For a Republican Speaker of the House – third-in-line to the presidency – not to campaign for a Republican presidential nominee was unprecedented.