Conservative: GOP in crisis mode as Trump's erratic antics hurls party into freefall

President Donald Trump now “owns” the Republican Party, according to conservative commentator Margaret Hoover — and it is clear that the party does not know what will happen after he is gone.“I don't know what's going to happen with the future of the Republican Party,” PBS’ Margaret Hoover told her husband, The Bulwark’s John Avlon, during a Bulwark appearance on Sunday. “What I do know is Donald Trump completely owns the primary process and owns the party. There's been a complete and total co-opting, but that's also not new — we absolutely knew that.”Hoover went on to describe how Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, despite his numerous scandals and perceived electability problems, trounced the incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the recent GOP primary after Trump endorsed Paxton over Cornyn. Hoover described Cornyn’s concession speech after losing as “a class act,” adding that “he was very humble and completely a team player, doing the exact opposite of what Trump had done to him, which was just completely run all over him.”She added, “I think it's a sign of somebody with dignity and respect. But I also think what I see over and over again is that the electeds at the highest levels and the appointees at the highest levels don't understand how fully corrupted the whole process has become until they interact with it head-on — and then they either go quietly into the night, or they have a seat in the peanut gallery on cable news, but they're not actually in the bowels of policy and the important places where decisions are being made about the future of our country.”After Avlon noted that Cornyn did so poorly that he only won a single county, and even that county only had eight votes cast in it.“It's a complete trouncing,” Hoover replied. “And also, Cornyn — in the context of the Republican Party corrupted by Trump — had been one of the guys who, I'm sure in his own telling of his narrative to himself, tried to collaborate with Trump as much as he thought he politically needed to, and yet stand up to Trump in places where he felt it was important, in order to be able to look himself in the mirror.”Last month CNN’s Aaron Blake reported that Trump is increasingly unconcerned with how his politics come across in terms of winning the midterm elections, instead acting unilaterally on controversial issues even though many of his fellow Republicans are alarmed that he is harming their future electoral prospects.“The Iran war is a case in point,” Blake explained. “Trump launched it without bothering to build a consistent case for it to the American people. The objectives have regularly shifted, and Trump seems unfamiliar with basic details.”Blake continued, “He has threatened Iran with apparent war crimes and even warned last week that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ — before averting that course.”He added that, in addition to his Iran war, Trump has threatened war against Denmark, posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ and engaged in a one-sided beef with the popular American-born pope, Leo XIV.“The most recent events have led even some former Trump allies — like ex-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Candace Owens and Alex Jones, as well as first Trump administration employees Ty Cobb and Stephanie Grisham — to warn that the president is crazy or insane. Some of them and others on the right have even floated the unlikely solution of removing Trump from office using the 25th Amendment,” Blake explained. “A majority of Americans seems to notice his behavior too. A recent poll from Reuters and Ipsos showed 61% — and even 3 in 10 Republicans — agreed that Trump has ‘become erratic with age.’”Blake concluded, “Other polls suggest rising concerns about Trump’s mental acuity.”