Trump will 'burn down' the GOP and the party has only itself to blame: conservative

Conservative A.B. Stoddard has written an essay for The Bulwark in which she warns Republicans that they have no choice but to suffer total annihilation under the hands of former President Donald Trump.

In the essay, titled "Yes, He Will Burn It All Down," she imagines what will happen if a Republican rival manages to overtake Trump in primary races heading into the 2024 presidential election.

"They have to worry that if Trump falls behind in the primary polls and another clear leader emerges, he will leave and trash everyone," she argues. "He won’t wait to lose the nomination, since he cannot permit an actual defeat. He will eject himself in advance and campaign against the party. Chaos always wins."

Stoddard then argues that even criminal charges against the former president will not save Republicans from his self-immolation, as they have spent years helping Trump condition Republican voters to believe that any accusations leveled against him are part of a vast conspiracy to destroy America.

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"Trump understands that anyone who dares to get into the race with him will have to agree that yes, it’s all a political persecution and Trump is innocent and that the best way to own the libs is to vote for him again," she writes. "They will have to say this because if they don’t, then they will either lose the primary or lose some sizable percentage of Republican voters. Trump rode to power by fighting the Republican establishment because he understood that it was weak. He realized that whatever Republican elites might say, they’ll always come to heel. Grab ’em by the insurrection. You can do whatever you want."

Read the whole essay here.