What to do about The Donald?

The Republican Party has collectively created a monster -- and now they don't know what to do to get rid of it.  Years of pandering to the baser emotions of fear and prejudice in their base voters, and creating expectations that they could not fulfil, is what led to this point.

Now, the base has turned against their own party leaders in feeling angry and betrayed.   Donald Trump is the one they are turning to to give them what they want:   a strong man who promises to "make America great again."   His success in the business world makes them think he can do the same for the country.

The problem, as pointed out by the Fox News moderators and by Marco Rubio in Thursday night's debate, is that Trump's promises are also empty.   He either has no intention of sticking to them (he's now hinting that some are "negotiating bids") or else they are based on false assumptions and errors in fact.

One example, as pointed out by moderator Chris Wallace, is Trump's claim that he will save $300 billion in Medicare prescription drug costs by negotiating with drug companies.   He came armed with facts on a slide:   Medicare only spends $78 billion on its drug program.   So there's no way to save $300 billion, nearly four times what they actually spend.

Marco Rubio and moderator Megyn Kelly together -- he with anecdotal stories from victims and she with cold facts -- put Trump on the spot about the con game he ran with his Trump University.   First of all, it had no credentials as a university and later had to change the name after this was challenged.   Second, the class action law suit in court now, brought by 5,000 former students who claim they were victims of fraud, is far from the "simple civil case" that he could easily settle, as he claims.  In an appeals court ruling that went against Trump in a related case, the judge stated that Trump's university scheme bore resemblance to the fraudulent scheme for which Bernie Madoff was convicted and is spending time in jail.

But do Trump's base voters care?  To many of them, this is more evidence of the establishment trying to defeat him because he is challenging them.    I'm not sure that's true for others though.   Some of his evangelical base will be turned off by his dishonesty.   His blue collar worker base may be turned off by his defrauding the "little guys" who wanted to learn his secrets of success in Trump U.   And things like learning that his Trump clothing line is made overseas, and that he hires foreign workers for his exclusive resort, may also make him seem like a hypocrit.

Numerically, at this point, the only hope to keep him from being the Republican nominee is for the combination of Kasich, Rubio, and Cruz to stay in the race, holding on to their smaller but collective delegates until the convention -- and thus denying him a majority.   And then fighting it out and emerging from the convention with another candidate.

At this point, it should be Kasich, based on his adult performance in the debate and his experience in government.   Let's see how he does in next Tuesday's Michigan primary and then in his own Ohio primary a week later.

In my opinion, going after Trump with the facts about his past dealings, as Wallace and Kelly did (that's right -- Fox News hosts),  is the way to try to stop him -- not with crude jokes about the size of body parts.   That only diminished Rubio for descending to Trump's level.   It didn't hurt Trump.   But maybe the facts might.

Ralph