When This Blows Over

Trump’s Republican critics variously disparaged
him as, at best, a Huey Long or Ross Perot,
whose populist message was antithetical to
conservative principles of unrestricted trade,
open-border immigration, and proper personal
comportment. At worse, a few Republican elites
wrote Trump off as a dangerous fascist akin to
Mussolini, Stalin, or Hitler.
For his part, Trump often sounded bombastic and vulgar.
By October, after the Access Hollywood video went viral,
many in the party were openly calling for him to step
down. Former primary rivals like Jeb Bush and John
Kasich reneged on their past oaths to support the eventual
Republican nominee and turned on Trump with a
vengeance.
By the end of the third debate, it seemed as if Trump had
carjacked the Republican limousine and driven it off a
cliff. His campaign seemed indifferent to the usual stuff
of an election run—high-paid handlers, a ground game,
polling, oppositional research, fundraising, social media,
establishment endorsements, and celebrity guest
appearances at campaign rallies. Pundits ridiculed his
supposedly “shallow bench” of advisors, a liability that
would necessitate him crawling back to the Republican
elite for guidance at some point.