How Trump Can Unite the GOP

W. James Antle III

Politics, United States

The Republican front-runner would need the party apparatus behind him in the general election.

When the Republican front-runner first emerged Tuesday night to declare victory, we saw a restrained, gracious and even presidential Donald Trump.

Trump praised House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has done everything in his power to undermine the billionaire. He urged Republicans to unify around his candidacy. In exchange, he promised to deliver the GOP the White House.

When the crowd started to boo a reference to Mitt Romney, Trump quieted them. He said that Romney, who rewarded Trump’s 2012 endorsement with a virtually unprecedented anti-Trump speech last week, was a “nice man.”

Trump even said that persistent critic Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina, was probably a nice man, though he did characterize Graham’s frequent televised attacks on his candidacy as “nasty.”

But it didn’t take long for the mask to slip. First, Trump garishly advertised his products: Trump steaks, Trump waters, Trump wine, Trump vodka. He defended Trump University and promised to win the lawsuit alleging he defrauded students.

The man who won Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii while finishing second in Idaho shoved aside his initial conciliatory rhetoric and blasted his primary opponents. He stopped short of calling for “Little Marco” Rubio to drop out, but vowed to beat him in Florida. Trump also went after “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz, the only Republican who has been able to compete with him in the primaries so far.

Trump faces a real dilemma. He keeps getting closer to winning the Republican presidential nomination, but the party’s elected officials are reluctant to coalesce around him and embrace him as the front-runner he is. Large swathes of both the Republican establishment and the conservative movement despise him. They at least talk about refusing to support him under any conceivable set of circumstances.

When Trump talks about the need to unite, when he gives press conferences in front of American flags rather than holding rallies, when he mentions the Supreme Court and letting down Antonin Scalia by allowing Hillary Clinton to pick the conservative jurist’s replacement, he is demonstrating a clear understanding that this is a problem.