Washington: There's blood in the water. Traditionally, a losing party might go to the mattresses after an election, but just days before an election that was its to win, the Republican Party is already tearing itself apart.
Acknowledging the seeming inevitability of victory for Hillary Clinton, some in the party are laying down plans for a likely GOP house majority to make life miserable for a President Hillary Clinton, with endless congressional investigations; but a good number are taking up positions in a circular firing squad.
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Privately, Donald Trump is demanding that House Speaker Paul Ryan, the most senior elected Republican in the country, be forced to pay for his disloyalty, and on Tuesday Trump made clear he'll not take any blame for defeat – "the people are very angry with the leadership of this party, because this is an election that we [could] win if we had support from the top," he told Reuters.
Amidst maneuvering to strip Ryan of the speakership, Trump supporter and Virginia congressman Dave Brat lashed out: "Leadership comes and smacks our guy? That's where you're going to put down a marker? Really? And the American people are just scratching their heads saying, 'Really? That's rich.'"
Signalling a push to pull the party to Trump's unorthodox credo on trade, jobs and migration, Ohio congressman Warren David pointed to Trump's vote tally in the GOP primaries, warning: "you can't ignore what millions and millions of people have expressed in this election cycle."
And Trump surrogate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich resorted to fantasy in warning Ryan of an internecine struggle that he could not win – "Read The Jungle Book – the oldest wolf is ultimately defeated as leader – great lesson for young politicians."
Riven and demoralised, the party is splintering into two camps – an establishment-led faction that will disown Trump as it attempts to make peace with the minorities abandoned in his pitch to a shrinking white America; and the Trump and Tea Party diehards who cling to the candidate's ethno-nationalist xenophobia.
It ain't over till it's over. But despite Trump closing the gap with Clinton in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls, by a couple of points in the last couple of weeks, there's a firm analytical consensus that a Clinton surge in most of the vital swing states means that Trump can't win.
![Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Charlotte, North Carolina.](/web/20161029054041im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/b/p/y/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsbpfp.png/1477523175927.jpg)
Other signs are bad.
A decision by Trump to quit big-money fundraising for the cash-strapped GOP reeks of his seeming acceptance of imminent defeat and of his rising hostility towards a party that he hijacked for the election – but which has never fully embraced him.
![Ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich: a big Trump supporter.](/web/20161029054041im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/b/e/i/z/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsbpfp.png/1477532158186.jpg)
And analyses of millions of early votes already cast across the country make dismal reading for Trump's campaign team, especially in their confirmation of opinion poll evidence that Trump's strategic lynchpin, a sweep of the so-called Rust Belt states, is failing.
These are the states that have suffered massive job losses, as factories have been automated and-or closed as operations go offshore. At best, Ohio is described as "a toss-up," but Trump is trailing Clinton in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by margins of 9, 6.5 and 4.4 points respectively.
![In a tough spot: House Speaker Paul Ryan.](/web/20161029054041im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/b/m/1/q/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsbpfp.png/1477523175927.jpg)
Apart from all of Clinton's personal baggage, including trustworthiness and honesty ratings second only to Trump's, the odds were stacked against her historically. Since 1950, only one candidate has won a third term in the White House for his party –Republican George HW Bush.
The GOP's post election dilemma is nerve-racking – a whole leadership generation will have been discredited for not pushing back hard enough as Trump emerged as the likely nominee – and in that, they created their own combustible Catch-22.
![Strong ground game: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.](/web/20161029054041im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/b/p/y/q/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsbpfp.png/1477617936153.jpg)
Bizarrely, one of the most striking holdouts, Texas Senator Ted Cruz who was the last of Trump's challengers to fall over in the race for the nomination, withheld his endorsement of Trump till late September – but having blessed the candidate, he enters the post-election mud-wrestling as tarnished as the rest.
Here's how New York Times columnist Ross Douthat parses it: "The party's leaders were afraid Trump would rage against them if they denied him the nomination; instead, he is raging against them for refusing to go to the mat for his caught-on-tape misogyny and pornographic boasts.
![An attendee wears a hat reading "Make America Great Again" before a campaign event at Youngstown State University in ...](/web/20161029054041im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/b/q/0/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsbpfp.png/1477523175927.jpg)
"They were afraid of infuriating his core voters by opposing him at the convention; instead, they are infuriating his core voters by keeping him at arm's length in the election's final stretch. They feared a war of Republican against Republican, conservative against conservative; they have one. They feared a turnout collapse, an inevitable defeat; they will most likely get both."
Initially, at least, a defeated Trump can be relied on to fight like a wounded animal and the presidential campaign has identified essential aspects of a fight-back – elements of the new, online-based rightwing media, like Breitbart News; activist lobbies, like Citizens United; and hard-right think tanks, like Heritage Action for America and Freedom Works. And of course, he has his own personal bomb-thrower and agent provocateur Roger Stone – who has predicted a "bloodbath" if Trump is defeated.
And for now at least, the GOP rank and file leans towards Trump – a recent Bloomberg poll found that 51 per cent of Republicans and likely GOP voters saw Trump as representative of their sense of what the GOP should stand for; compared with just 33 per cent who saw Ryan as their man.
Ryan is among a GOP who's-who of likely presidential candidates for the 2020 election.
But Trump, always a modest man, seemed to argue to a rally in Florida this week that that only he can defeat Clinton – "all these characters, they want to run in four years. They can forget it. They're wasting their time. You don't have even a little bit of a chance."
Trump's options are limited. There are reports that he's considering a new Trumpist television operation. But despite his huge following, he is being counselled to consider the speed at which former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and ex-Fox News blabbermouth Glenn Beck saw their stars dim in the absence of their respective GOP and Fox platforms.
If Trump is guided by a self-congratulatory claim he made in old audio-recorded interviews that surfaced this week – "I never had a failure, because I always turned a failure into a success" – he's likely to hang in with the GOP at a time when it must decide, in the words of conservative commentator and Never Trumper, Peter Wehner, whether it needs a dose of amoxicillin for a bout of pneumonia or chemotherapy to treat its cancer.
If the conduct of Trump's presidential campaign is a guide, that is guaranteed to be brutal, self-destructive process.
Trump's campaign has been erratic and eccentric, relying on free media instead of targeted advertising; mounting minimal ground operations in the states, despite Clinton's maximalist strategy, and arguing gut-appeal bullet-points instead of articulating substantial policy positions.
And recent electoral financial filings have turned up a remarkable measure of Trump's rejection of conventional campaign tactics and strategising – his campaign has invested a paltry $US1.8 million on polling, compared with $US3.2 million on those ubiquitous red baseballs caps emblazoned with his 'make America great again' slogan.
But if he can't make America great again, what use will Donald Trump be to the GOP as it searches for relevance in a changing world?