The Republican establishment raises the white flag

The Republican Party or, more accurately, the top figures within the party (and not the grassroots membership) has been in conniptions over a Mr Donald J. Trump for the past few months. He has been the leading primary candidate across the United States for far longer than is normal for such campaigns. He has demonstrated enormous influence through skilled manipulation of the media which has allowed him to constantly gain attention, and he is able to shake off what would otherwise be enormous gaffes with a practised ease. He has coupled this with a total disdain for the top brass of the party he is running to be the presidential candidate for.

In response to this potent combination, said brass has brought out every weapon they could use while simultaneously trying to avoid annoying their grassroots supporters more than they already have, culminating in an entire issue of the National Review, probably the most significant conservative magazine in American circulation, presenting a series of essays by 22 authors which had the sole aim of being 'AGAINST TRUMP'.

Who on Earth thought this was a good idea?

In placing themselves 'AGAINST TRUMP', the Review fails to state what exactly it is for. From the essays that the issue holds, it seems that the answer to that is 'anything that isn't Trump'. A number of essays actually contradict each other, attacking Trump from different sides of an issue. A magazine that holds that a candidate is unsuitable because of their views on certain issue, and then takes contradictory positions on those same issues, has launched their attack from a position of weakness. It makes them appear as though they only disagree with the candidate because of who he is - which, in this case, seems quite accurate.

It establishes Trump in a position of further strength, the very opposite of what they were attempting to do. He has become the candidate. No other presidential candidate is going to get an issue of an entire magazine dedicated to being against them, are they? Trump's tactic of sucking the oxygen out of other campaigns by becoming the focus of the news every week was actually done for him last week by this issue of the Review.

And then, to add to the establishment's unwise decisions, Fox News has decided to also try to use their influence as the big conservative news network to do what the Review failed to do. At the head of this attack has been Megyn Kelly, who quickly rose to being the network's number one following her tit-for-tat with Trump during the last Fox debate. She even had some of the Review's editors on her show to commemorate that they were all 'AGAINST TRUMP'.

This all in the week leading up to the last debate before the Iowa caucus. It appears this was organised so that they would be able to attack Trump just in time to push him down in Iowa, and slowly wear him out in favour of someone, anyone else. This is further supported by the new information that a questioner at the Iowa debate, invited by the hosts, was to be a prominent YouTuber with a history of attacking Trump.

This was a terrible miscalculation. Trump's biggest supporters are people who feel ignored by the establishment, and now they see the establishment attacking their candidate, who they can see has wide support. How could they expect people to support them instead of Trump? All this did was provide another opportunity for him to suck the oxygen out of any discussion that didn't revolve around him, and he duly took it by boycotting the debate, thus robbing Fox of their much wanted chance to take him down and vast amount of viewers and, therefore, dollars. They seem to have forgotten that they are meant to be a news network in their desperation to take down a man they have no control over, thinking that they could ensnare him. Sure, Trump might be affected by this - conventional wisdom seems to say so - but conventional wisdom has not helped one iota in observing this campaign. 

Instead of going to the debate, Trump will be holding an event to raise money for veterans. He just knows which buttons to push at the right time to take full advantage of whatever opportunity presents itself. This will allow him to present himself as an all-American 'good guy' once again, and if that's what he is, what, we then ponder, must Fox be? (And to top it all off, Kelly had noted American critic of America, Michael Moore, on her programme, which he spent mostly congratulating her about taking the fight to Trump. That Moore should appear on Fox at all would normally send klaxons blaring, but to do so in a totally positive context is truly extraordinary.)

Trump will probably win Iowa, and he'll surely win the Republican nomination. The establishment picked a fight with the wrong guy, and are going to have the blowtorch applied to them over and over until they fall in line. Or until they stay true to themselves and support Michael Bloomberg instead.