The GOP’s terrifying Trump plan: Why the party’s establishment thinks it can control the Donald—and

The GOP’s terrifying Trump plan: Why the party’s establishment thinks it can control the Donald—and why it’s wrong
by Heather Digby Parton at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/21/the_gops_terrifying_trump_plan_why_the_partys_establishment_thinks_it_can_control_the_donald_and_why_its_wrong/

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It’s hard to wrap your mind around a party that thinks Donald Trump — King of the Birthers, the man who promises to deport 12 million Latinos, bring back torture and summary execution and bar all Muslims from entering the U.S. — is less of an extremist than Ted Cruz. Apparently all that’s fine as long as you don’t say mean things about elected officials. (And have they never heard a Donald Trump speech?)

Not to say that that Ted Cruz isn’t an extremist. Of course he is. He’s a bona fide, far-right conservative movement zealot. And sure, the party establishment has been at war with the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus types for a while now. But they haven’t come right out and openly dissed them. Suddenly, they are feeling free to do that. And that’s because they have another far right zealot to present to the rubes, one who they believe is more malleable and would by necessity be forced to turn to them for expert guidance if he were to win the nomination.

According to the National Review’s report from the GOP’s retreat last week, these people feel downright confident that Trump is such an empty suit they’ll be able to dominate him with little problem. Cruz, not so much:

The developing feeling among House Republicans? Donald Trump is preferable to Ted Cruz. “If you look at Trump’s actual policies, they’re pretty thin. There’s not a lot of meat there,” says one Republican member in Ryan’s inner circle, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the two front-runners as leadership has carefully avoided doing all week.


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