But that would depend on the rules of the party process.

... exactly what. None of the notions got far tho.

I would have thought that there would have been any number of players who would have exerted influence to stop Trump at many stages of the game. They did not. Either the people who exert influence in our society have all become complete sociopaths, or they haven't, but were steamrollered by a group of sociopaths with an unprecedented degree of power.

I'd bet on the latter. I could be wrong.

at getting the nomination. But Ted Cruz is despised by too many republicans and Anyone-But-Cruz allowed Trump to float to the top.

The GOP ran on:
"Democrats are Washington-insiders and the establishment! Establishment bad! We are with the little guys!"

And Trump turned this into:
"All my opponents are Washington-insiders and the establishment! Establishment bad! I'm with the little guys!"



The Republicans thought that they could beat the Democrats by painting themselves as the underdogs running against the establishment. Except that even though the Republicans painted themselves as less establishment than the Democrats, Trump managed to paint himself as less establishment than the Republicans.

It was exactly their strategy and he hijacked the voter-sentiment that they had built for themselves. Attacking Trump would have meant fighting against their own propaganda, their own memes and their own talking-points.

They knew he had a powerful cultish movement of deplorables in his camp and once he had knocked off Cruz and Rubio, the Dominionists/Fascists of Bannon and Conaway with Mercer's money took over his campaign steering him towards fundy darling Pence which placated the party enough to not knock him off at convention. The moderates of the Repub party are now a minority who are afraid of the extreme majority they created.

Plus the lack of a super-delegate style safety net were part of the problem (not to mention the nonsense that are the caucuses). Plus, they had too many candidates who took votes from each other. While the more sane Republicans split their vote between Kasich, Rubio, and Cruz, Trump piled up all the votes from the Tea Baggers. I don't recall how open or closed their primaries were but this is sure an ad for keeping primaries closed!

bosses years ago and this has allowed all sorts of crazies into the GOP primary system. I took an online course in Democratic Development a couple years ago and the professor talked about this and was alarmed about it then. Don't know if party bosses could have stopped Trump though with his celebrity.

to favor an early front-runner in 2016. By the time they realized DT really had a shot at it, they were too scared of losing his supporters. I'm also not ruling out Russia giving DT damaging info on some of the last ones standing.

Remember, early on, their primaries were shaping up to be a rerun of the 2012 clown car show.

Back then, as in 2016, they had a busload of people running and a clear establishment favorite. Unlike 2016, the teabaggers flitted from favorite to favorite, as a succession of them gave a good "red meat" line that created a buzz, only to have it fade when the tea leavings found out about other stuff they said that wasn't Conservatively Correct. Surrounded by one-hit wonders, Romney was the one who came out on top in the end, despite how much the primaries were about "anybody but Mitt."

Then he lost, making the base even angrier at their party establishment.

This time around, it initially looked to be much he same. Except Jebsclamationpoint Bush fizzled early on and none of the other professional politicians generated much buzz outside their own cluster of supporters, so they cannibalized each other for the establishment bloc.

In other words, they could have tightened up their rules on entering the primaries in a way that would have cut off Trump, Carson, and the others, but that would have antagonized the teabaggers. Why give yourself the grief when it's not necessary, they thought. And by the time Trump's delegate count started adding up, it was too late.