Former adviser to elder Bush thinks the GOP has to lose in 2016 in order to survive.

Bruce Bartlett, a senior policy analyst for George H. W. Bush and, by today's standards, a moderate Republican who voted for Barack Obama, wrote an op-ed for PoliticoMagazine, saying that "a Trump nomination is not something to be feared but welcomed.  It is only after a landslide loss by Trump that the GOP can win the White House again."

In other words, he concedes that only by losing in 2016 can the Republican Party purge itself of the Tea Party influence and "give what's left of the sane wing of the GOP a chance to reassert control. . . . [I]t would prove beyond doubt that the existing conservative coalition [of populism and anti-intellectualism] cannot win the presidency."

Thursday night, Bartlett was a guest on  "All In With Chris Hayes," where he expanded on this:

 "Donald Trump . . . exposes everything about the Republican Party that I have frankly come to hate. It is just filled with people who are crazy, and stupid, and have absolutely no idea of what they are taking about. And the candidates, no matter how intelligent they may be, just constantly have to keep pandering to this lowest common denominator in American politics. . . .

". . . one of the things that we are seeing very clearly this time . . .is that issues don't matter. Policies don't matter. The only thing that matters is attitude. And Trump has exactly the right 'chip on your shoulder' attitude that many, many people find extraordinarily attractive that is completely divorced from whatever he is saying about the issues, which is precious little."

There you have it from a man who once was in Poppy Bush's inner circle, who thinks the salvation for the Republican Party is not to elect another Bush -- but to go down in flames with Trump . . . and then rebuild the party.

OK.   Let's don't get in their way. 

Ralph