MILWAUKEE — There are no ordinary weeks on the trail of Campaign 2016. One week brings insults over spouses and salacious allegations from a supermarket tabloid. Now it’s a campaign manager charged with simple assault, a candidate offering an alternative reality about the charge and a Republican Party ever more threatened with chaos, depending on its nominee.

What this is about is clear to all — an unstable Republican coalition, the disruptive candidacy of Donald Trump and an alarmed GOP “establishment” that has proven (not surprisingly) to be powerless or helpless in the face of unfolding events. Where it ends is anybody’s guess. The party that champions free markets is now hostage to the volatile political markets of 2016 and to the disparate consumers who in one way or another identify with the GOP brand.

From a distance, the various elements of the Republican coalition appear irreconcilable. Establishment Republicans are appalled at the prospect of Trump as nominee. Those in the establishment who have rushed to support Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas have done so because he has managed to beat Trump more than another else. They have done so with grave reservations, given his history of tormenting party leaders.

<>

Cruz said Tuesday night that a Trump nomination would be “an absolute train wreck” that would “hand the general election to Hillary Clinton.” But if Trump enters with more delegates and is denied the nomination, the party faces a potential train wreck internally, as millions of voters who have backed the New York billionaire decide whether to fall in line or stay on the sidelines in November.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-gops-patina-of-cohesion-has-been-shattered-by-the-candidates/2016/03/30/850de0c6-f69c-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_story.html