The GOP let Dracula into the house. They knew who/what he was. They gave him a free pass during the primary season. Rather than mounting a concerted attack on him from all sides, calling him out for what he truly is (we all know the adjectives...liar, sexual predator, intellectual midget, bereft of information), the 16 other candidates either tried to make alliances with him (Christie, Carson) or threw spitballs instead of firing howitzers. He bullied Jeb, Marco, and Ted because they were the odds-on favorites. Each in turn responded with muted criticism around the edges rather than attacking head-on all together on the substance of his lunacy, his vacuousness, his narcissism, his inability to tell the truth, his wife-cheating, his whacked out policy ideas like building a wall, and on and on and on.
Why? I don't think it's because they didn't know how to fight. They and the rest of the GOP leadership saw the value in Trump's draw, his ability to activate the 30-40MM yahoos into voting Republican. They bet wrong, obviously. But by convention time rather than kneecapping Trump then and there, they continued to "manage" him. They could have split the party and taken the GOP $$ with them (or most of it) a la TR and the Bull Moose Party. They would've lost to HRC, I know, but the country would've been spared the Trump crisis. Then after he won the nomination the party leadership either grinned through gritted teeth at Trump or outright supported him. If every GOP Senator and Governor had done what Mitt did, we'd have been spared Trump and the crisis of his Presidency.
I blame the media because they feasted on his ratings while giving him a free pass. The editor of the WSJ wrote a tender editorial a few months back about why they couldn't call him a liar sooner...like during the campaign. I was unmoved. If the entire media had attacked candidate Trump with actual tough questions at his rallies, in person, on air, he would've withered. I recall Trump on Fox & Friends--calling in, of course, not showing up like a real candidate--saying that we ought to murder the families of ISIS members. Everyone on F&F chuckled as if to say, "Well, that's crazy! But who knows, right guys? Maybe we should revert to barbarianism!" I could run the battery down on my laptop with examples like that. He was good for ratings/eyeballs/readers so the fourth estate let him call into shows and blather on, all the while enraging his base more and more while driving up ratings. Les Moonves said it best when he said Trump may be bad for America but he's great for ratings. And when someone like Megyn Kelly finally went after him in the debates, and Trump attacked her implying she was probably menstruating at the time, she later slithered back into Trump's good graces with a softball one-on-one. Why? Wait for it...RATINGS.
Trump is a creature of reality TV. And his rise is the result of deeply disafected Americans yearning for leadership from Washington that will ease their pain. Papa Don Trump said he has all the answers, only he can solve our nation's problems. And because the 30-40MM yahoos are under-educated and ravenous for some change, some answer, some kind of relief, they voted for him. (The other 20-30MM held their nose and said, "Well, at least he's a Republican." I had dinner with the head of the GOP in DC in late October. He said he knew Trump was horrible but that the party would mitigate any damage he might cause by surrounding him with good people. Surround him with people like Bannon and Ivanka? How's that insulation strategy working for you now?)
So, Trump is who he has always been. The real blame belongs to the GOP and the media for letting Dracula into the house.
NB: Dracula can't enter a home uninvited. But once invited, he does whatever he wants. And he always wants to suck the life out of you. Just like Trump is sucking the life out of our blessed Republic.
