Taking Down the Donald

If his Republican opponents will not take down Donald Trump, Fox News will not only show them how it is done. Fox News will do the job for them.

That is the message that came out loud and clear from last Thursday’s debate in Cleveland, which was viewed by the largest cable audience ever to watch a political event — 24 million Americans.

As political theater, it was exciting and entertaining.

But what was supposed to be a debate among the top-10 Republican candidates turned into a bear-baiting of Donald Trump.

A real danger is emerging here of the split inside the GOP deepening and widening. For if it is seen that Trump has not been rejected by the voters, but driven out the race by the establishment and the elites, the value of the nomination will be vastly diminished.

Thus far in this presidential season, the rise of the Republican outsiders, insurgents, nonpoliticians and anti-politicians reveals how far the people of the United States are estranged and alienated from their political leadership.

In the Democratic Party, too, we have seen the rise of outsider-insurgent Socialist Bernie Sanders to within single digits of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, and the fall of Clinton to where she is underwater in the polls on issues of trust and, “Does she care about people like me?”

If there is one lesson to be taken from this run-up year to the presidential campaign of 2016, it is that a huge and growing segment of the nation does not want what the establishment of either party has on offer.

And as insurgent parties spring up all over Europe, and the two-party system disintegrates there, the Europeanization of American politics may be at hand.