Trump isn’t just a symbol of voter frustration or outrage with an unresponsive system—the conservative counterpart to Sen. Bernie Sanders. No, from his attacks on President Obama’s citizenship in 2011 to his rhetoric against Latino immigrants and Muslim Americans today, Trump is an avatar of the ugliest impulses in American political life. And while it’s tempting to treat this as simple ignorance, the truth is that Trump comes out of a long tradition of American illiberalism, from the 19th-century “Know-Nothings” who raged against the influx of Irish and Catholic immigrants, to the Reconstruction-era vigilantes and “redeemers” who terrorized black and white voters and overturned elected governments in the postwar South.
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...For the GOP—much like the Democratic Party in the 1960s—a successful Trump would force a reckoning. Either Republicans cut him out of the party, even at the risk of losing in a three-way race, or they follow Nixon’s example and co-opt his basic message for the party’s use, shrinking his base enough to win if he runs an independent campaign.
In which case, by leaving the mark of white nationalism on the Republican Party, Trump wins regardless of his ultimate fate.
