Donald Trump's remarkable — and explicable — command of the Republican primary on Super Tuesday is probably a confirmation that he will be the next Republican nominee for President.

Deep breaths.

Although he might not win with a majority of voters, and has certainly benefitted from some inadvertently helpful rules changes to the primary this year, as well as an overly crowded stage of candidates, we can't take away from Trump his total trouncing of one of the most gifted and promising fields of Republican candidates in decades

There will be much handwringing, soul searching and navel-gazing over the next few months among conservatives and liberals alike to explain how this happened, but some things seem pretty clear already.

One, Trump has changed the map. Let's take Massachusetts, for one example, where Trump won nearly 50% of the vote. I know my home state well — of the few conservatives who live there and vote, we are not generally risk takers. In at least the past eight election cycles (as far back as I had the energy to look in the midst of my Trump Super Tuesday depression), Massachusetts Republican primary voters chose the establishment pick. Massachusetts voted for Romney — who recently called Trump's David Duke comments "disgusting and disqualifying" — twice. In 2000, it voted for John McCain, who Trump has openly mocked. In 1996, Mass. went for Bob Dole, who just endorsed Marco Rubio. And in 1992, George HW Bush was the pick of Massachusetts Republicans. He just motioned a throat cut at Trump from the audience of the last debate.

For another, the Republican party has vastly overestimated the loyalty of the conservative electorate. While still voting for a "Republican" candidate, Trump's supporters completely repudiated the entire Republican apparatus. It's bigger than just the establishment — in no world is Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Rand Paul or Rick Santorum "establishment." Trump voters rebuked the moderate candidates, the strict constitutional conservative candidates, the most evangelical candidates, the most experienced candidates, the least experienced candidates, the libertarian candidates, party elders, party darlings — all rejected by a large block of Republican voters in favor of a candidate whose loyalty to the Republican party has been as authentic as his skin tone.

Likewise, the speed with which the conservative electorate has abandoned the characteristic that has defined it over the past eight years — purity — is remarkable.

Ever since the tea party revolution in 2010, and just as recently as the last midterms, ideological purity, and an unflinching devotion to Constitutional conservatism, muscular Christianity, and a seething hatred for the other side, drove people like Ted Cruz in and John Boehner out.

What the Trump phenomenon demonstrates is just how completely the purity movement has evaporated. Just two years ago Trump's lack of conservative and evangelical fluency would have made him persona non grata within the base. His Democratic resume and coziness with the Clintons would have disqualified him totally. All that is gone. The question is, of course, is that only true of Trump, who maybe gets a pass for his uniquely charismatic and large persona? Or has the DNA of conservative base fundamentally changed?

Finally, it seems as though Marco Rubio, the best hope for the Republican party to defeat the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and do it without burning the Republican party to the ground, has an almost impossible pathway to the nomination now. In states where he could have challenged Trump — Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina — Trump ended up the clear victor. He can hold out for Florida, his home state, but Rubio's campaign has been predicated on his electability, which thus far is not in evidence. Further, Ted Cruz, his nearest rival, won Oklahoma and Texas Tuesday night, bolstering his argument that he is the clear Trump alternative.

The problem is Cruz is even less electable in a general than Trump is. Where Trump can actually pull disaffected Reagan Democrats — say, union members, blue collar workers, boomers who feel the Democratic party has moved too far left — to vote for him, maybe making up for some of his predictably massive losses among Hispanics and African Americans, Cruz's voting demographic is microscopically small. So if you were hoping for anyone but Trump, Cruz could pull out a primary win, but the Republican chances of winning the White House are then cut in half.

Super Tuesday was more than just agita for conservatives who want a conservative sent to the White House. It was a double coronary. The question now is — what next?

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/s-e-c...ticle-1.2549711
***********

she may have just coined a new phrase, "the purity movement" I've never heard that one before TM