Is Donald an unsettling factor for Republican party?

The political conversation in Dhaka now is a lot about the US presidential election. Many are excited that Bernie Sanders is catching up with the former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton. But the fact that Donald Trump leads the pack of nearly 10 in the Republican Party worries many deeply. The constant polls on the candidates confuse many. These days I live in the USA and I have participated in a few conversations on US presidential election.
To those who worry about Donald Trump, I tell them he is more a worry for the Republican Party than the other stakeholders in US politics. When he had decided to seek the Republican ticket, very few and least of all, the Republican Party took him seriously. As he started to gather people in his meetings and rallies, the Party was happy because it thought he was bringing Republican supporters to the Party and that having done that, he would be sidetracked because he had no policy suggestions to offer to make him a serious presidential candidate. The Party thought that he would serve merely as the cheerleader to serve the Party's interests.
Donald Trump, of course, had other ideas. He openly expressed his dislike for the Republican National Committee leaders and wanted to beat them in their own game, namely politics. He saw two realities that offered him the easy way to get what he wanted. First, he focused upon the large Republican pack seeking the ticket and concluded that all he needed was 25 per cent or a little more support in the Party to emerge on top of the pack. Second, he quickly and correctly concluded that at the Party's grassroots, there was deep resentment with Washington on a whole range of issues, particularly those relating to immigration and national security.
Thus, he started his campaign by picking on the immigrants and chose the Mexicans for special offensive treatment calling them rapists and criminals. As he found large support for his offensive strategy, he shifted gears and attacked the Muslims and demanded a temporary ban on 1.6 billion Muslims. He told his supporters that for Washington's leadership failures, the US is not taken seriously in the world forum anymore and that as President, he would "once again" make the US the greatest nation on earth, both feared and respected. Of course, he did not tell how, because he did not himself know how. His supporters did not care that he did not know how, because all they were interested in was for someone like Donald Trump to vent their frustrations on the national stage and, if necessary, do so in as offensive and abusive a manner as possible. For these Americans, Donald Trump has been heaven sent.
Thus, the more Donald Trump has insulted and abused the immigrants, the Hispanics/Latinos, Muslims and the coloreds, the stronger has his support grown. Instead of falling out as the Party would have liked, Donald Trump now leads the others in the pack so handsomely that only a miracle could now take away from him the Party ticket. Meanwhile, finding how abuse and offense have served Donald Trump's cause, his closest rivals Senators Cruz and Marco Rubio have also followed him with their share of offensive and abusive rhetoric in their efforts to get the ticket leaving Jeb Bush as the lone voice of reason in the party but now practically without any chance of the ticket.
Donald Trump largely, and his closest rivals also in tune, have thus turned the Republican Party on its head. Their abusive and offensive rhetoric have made them popular but within a base that taken together would be short to take any of them to the White House unless between now and November when Americans will elect their 45th President, the candidate the Democrats choose commits some kind of blunder which is not unlikely in the context of the past history of US presidential elections.
At present, within the Democratic Party, the fight for the ticket is getting closer and interesting. Hillary Clinton who not too long ago was under great pressure on the email and Benghazi issues has put both these behind her. Ironically, it was Bernie Sanders who let her off the hook on the email controversy in the first of the nationally televised Democratic debates while the 11 hours' grilling that the Republicans gave her in Congress on the Benghazi affair to prove she could not be trusted as a Commander-in-Chief was counter productive that cleared the former First Lady with the nation while underlining that her opponents were pursuing her in a manner too obviously vindictive.  
Bernie Sanders' passion for the causes of the underprivileged of all kinds has given him a national platform. Nevertheless, in US politics, it is quite all right to speak for the underprivileged but politically it's not the right thing to be identified as a socialist and a liberal for a presidential election. Bernie Sanders has been identified as both. His case is the other extreme of that of Donald Trump. In other words, his support is as restricted nationally as is Donald Trump's, not enough to take either of them to the White House. However in the case of Bernie Sanders, if he eventually conceded to Hillary Clinton, he would do so by delivering his entire support to her making her candidature stronger. In case Donald Trump gets the nomination, the supporters of many of his contenders are likely to stay away from the election and some even vote against him.
All these leave Hillary Clinton the strongest among the candidates in the race for the White House. Her Republican opponents are still trying to establish her as an untrustworthy leader but with the wind out of the sail on the email and Benghazi issues, that effort is getting weaker. On the other hand, she is the only one with a sea of experience in leadership at the national and international levels where her opponents are by no yardsticks even in her league. Added to all these advantages, she is vying to become the first women President of the country where half the voters are women.
Nevertheless, it is still too early to predict a winner. But with the way Donald Trump has humiliated and insulted the Hispanics/Latinos, Muslims and other immigrants, it is certain that if he is the Republican candidate, then the overwhelming majority of voters in these groups will not vote for the Republican Party and without their votes, it is inconceivable that the Republicans could win. If someone else is the Republican candidate, then too the same voters are unlikely to vote for the Party because while Donald Trump insulted and humiliated them, the Party had remained silent. And to make the prospect of the Republicans bleak, the Democrats are expected to fight the presidential election united behind whoever is the ultimate candidate of the party while the same is not likely to be the case with the candidate that the Republicans eventually choose.
The writer is a retired Ambassador.
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