It occurs to me that the result of the election will not be the thing that determines the fate of the GOP and conservatism – if Trump wins [given the polls a virtual impossibility at this point] Trumpism and its many apologists will be validated, vindicated, the GOP will be forever changed accordingly and conservatism will either vanish or need reinventing under the banner of a new party – if he loses those same apologists and the bulk of Trump’s followers will spawn conspiracy theories, spew copious venom at the evil Republican establishment and then scurry after Trump to whatever media ‘empire’ he’s planning on building, meaning many of those people will likely never vote GOP again, meaning the GOP will no longer be a viable national party, meaning conservatism will need to be reinvented under a different banner.
When it comes to just how screwed the GOP and conservatism are, the result of the election is not the thing that matters – what matters are the debates. If Hillary reduces Trump to a smoldering pile of ashes on the stage, thoroughly embarrasses him, thoroughly exposes him as a man utterly unfit and unprepared for the Oval Office, then the Trumpkins will not be able to blame his loss in the election on conspiracy theories and the perfidious establishment – the clear reason for the loss will have leapt off TV screens in millions of homes across the country: not qualified to serve. Conversely, if Trump manages to crawl over the lowest of bars when it comes to questions of ‘competence’ or if Hillary stumbles and fails to deliver, then you’re back to the two inevitabilities stated above.
I know what you’re saying: poor debate performance didn’t hurt him in the primary. Two big differences here: nothing hurt him in the primary because of an unshakeable plurality of Koolaid drinkers who could care less if he sounded presidential – in the upcoming debates those Koolaid drinkers will be dwarfed by the number of people tuning in for the explicit purpose of seeing if Trump can pull off sounding half way presidential; more problematic for Trump is fact there’ll be no where to hide on that stage – he will not be able escape Hillary’s attacks by tossing off insults or diverting attention to someone else nor will he be able to fake his way through tough questions with incoherent non-answers laced with slogans and empty rhetoric. In other words, people tuned into the republican debates to see a Trump performance – people will be tuning into the presidential debates to see a presidential performance. If Trump can’t pull it off it will be obvious to everyone.
In an ironical twist so absurd it challenges credulity, the fate of conservatism in America may depend on the debating skills of the great pant suited one, the corrupt and cankled doyen of our fallen democracy. God help us all.