Hijacking the Republican Party

Early this week a top Republican consultant whined: “Donald Trump is hijacking the Republican party.”

Really?

This is a common and almost comical complaint these days from the establishment wing of the GOP — i.e., the people who have hijacked the party pretty much since the end of the Reagan era. In his disgraceful and classless rant against Mr. Trump on Thursday, Mitt Romney even unveiled a new strategy by the establishment: keep Mr. Trump from getting a majority of the delegates (though he is very likely to win a plurality) and then steal the election from Mr. Trump at the convention. Ironically, these are the same people who were making fun of the Democrats for “rigging” their nomination process in favor Hillary.

What is clear is that the party’s brain trust, such as it is, is doing everything it can to disenfranchise millions of new Republican voters and deny Mr. Trump the nomination.

Even more disgraceful is the way Mr. Romney and others on the right are ridiculing Mr. Trump’s voters as “suckers,” “racists,” “bigots” and “uninformed.” So much for the GOP being a big tent.

Mr. Romney and the Republican elites keep scratching their heads after each election loss and wonder why the voters have concluded the GOP doesn’t “care about poeple like me.” After listening to the way the GOP brain trust disses Trump voters, maybe these working class folks are exactly right.