Quiet conversations have begun in recent weeks among some of the Republican Party’s biggest donors and normally competing factions, all aimed at a single question: How can we stop Donald Trump?

Republican strategists and donors have assembled focus groups to test negative messages about Mr. Trump. They have amassed dossiers on his previous support for universal health care and higher taxes. They have even discussed the creation of a “super PAC” to convince conservatives that Mr. Trump is not one of them.

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Yet after committing hundreds of millions of dollars to shape the Republican primary contest and groom a candidate who can retake the White House, the conservative donor class is finding that money — even in an era of super PACs and billion-dollar presidential campaigns — is a devalued currency in the blustery, post-policy campaign fashioned by Mr. Trump, driven not by seven-figure advertising campaigns but by Twitter feuds and unending free publicity.

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Andy Sabin, a New York supporter of Jeb Bush, said the question of what to do about Mr. Trump had come up repeatedly on the Hamptons fund-raising circuit this summer, as what seemed like a summer romance by disenchanted conservatives blossomed into a full-blown insurgency.

“He’s been a topic, and he obviously disgusts a lot of people, because he’s been vile,” said Mr. Sabin, who is also a donor to American Crossroads, the party’s leading super PAC. “But he’s also been able to bring out what people feel about their government.”

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Allies of Mr. Bush, arguing that Mr. Trump helps the former Florida governor by stealing voters and attention from other anti-establishment candidates, remark that perhaps donors to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, or Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, might take the lead in financing a Trump takedown.

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AR is a trusted commenter Virginia 21 hours ago

“He (Trump) has been a topic, and he obviously disgusts a lot of people, because he’s been vile,” said Mr. Sabin

Spoken by a supporter of Jeb Bush--a dilettante child of privilege who wishes to deny low-income women access to family planning and birth control services. What's vile again?

I appreciate Mr. Trump for making Jeb Bush's daily life on the campaign trail so utterly miserable. The Bushes are vile, nasty people--silk stockings filled with mud who try so hard to look courtly and statesmanlike and fail utterly--who've succeeded at playing dirty in US politics for decades (Lee Atwater, 1988) and now they're stumped to realize that Jeb's glide path to the White House may be in trouble.

Just for that, thank you Donald. Keep it up.

Tb is a trusted commenter Philadelphia 23 hours ago

This article is almost written from the point of view of the Bush people.

The whole Bush MO is to SOUND moderate while remaining a rip-roaring right-wing Christian warmonger whose idea of economic justice is to keep cutting taxes on billionaires until they own every penny in the country.

Remember how George marketed himself as this moderate from Texas who could unite the country. Remember how that turned out.

I respect Trump more than Bush because he's not trying to fool anybody.

mike cleveland hts 9 hours ago

It is not just the 'Republican establishment' that is confused. It's the whole punditry/inside Wash beltway establishment that is flummoxed. Certainly the GOP is reaping what it sowed. They enjoyed Trump and his birther shenanigans, and now that 'genie' is out of the bottle.

But if they created Trump, they had plenty of enablers in the Punditry/Beltway elite. The faux journalism whereby both opinions (no matter how absurd) are given equal weight, the Pravda-like quality of Fox News, the breathless 'Breaking News' over the most trivial of stories, all contribute to the dumbing down of a wide swath of the GOP.

There is a lot of dry tinder in the American political forest as a result of years of looking the other way at the xenophobes and conspiracy nuts. It's all starting to burn now. Hopefully it will all burn itself up in a climatic landslide defeat for the GOP, and the new growth will result. We need a viable two party system.

My only regret is the passing of both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report at this time. I would have enjoyed their reporting.