Peggy Noonan: GOP 'is ending'

By Eddie Scarry (@eScarry) • 3/4/16

"[W]e are witnessing history. Something important is ending. It is hard to believe what replaces it will be better," Peggy Noonan wrote.

Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal columnist and former speechwriter to Ronald Reagan, is declaring an end to the Republican Party.

In her column Friday, Noonan said proof that the GOP is coming apart is evident by the rise of Donald Trump, his unorthodox conservatism and the party's elder statesmen's refusal to accept that he may become their presidential nominee.

"[W]e are witnessing history. Something important is ending. It is hard to believe what replaces it will be better," wrote Noonan. "No one knows where this goes. The top of the party and the bottom have split. They disagree on the essentials."

Trump currently has by far the most delegates in the GOP primary. But his main rivals, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, with encouragement from the party's old guard, are pushing to deprive him of the number needed to lock up the nomination.

Some Republican operatives are even pursuing a brokered convention in July, which would require the party to reorganize and select its nominee during the event, rather than through the normal primary process.

 

"If party forces succeed in finagling [Trump] out of the nomination, his supporters will bolt, which will break the party," Noonan said in her column. "And it's hard to see what kind of special sauce, what enduring loyalty would make them come back in the future."