The Republican Party might have lost due to Donald Trump

       

All year, Republicans have been trying to convince themselves that Donald Trump would pivot to the general election once he got the nomination — cleaning up his act, professionalizing his campaign, and making appeals beyond his base.

In his first two weeks after the Republican National Convention, he’s basically done the exact opposite.

In late July, the day after grabbing the nomination, Trump went on a rant about Ted Cruz, reviving his bizarre accusation that Cruz’s father might’ve been involved in killing JFK. From there, things only got worse. Trump suggested offhand in a New York Times interview that the US shouldn’t honor its NATO commitments. This past weekend, he attacked Khizr Khan, the bereaved father of Army Captain Humayun Khan. He then pointedly refused to endorse Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who has already endorsed him, enraging Republicans.

It’s worth noting that Trump has often had controversies and bad weeks like this before, and they never seem to faze him much. But this time around, Republican leaders and politicians seem genuinely rattled.

NBC's Katy Tur reported that RNC Chair Reince Priebus was "apoplectic" over Trump's non-endorsement of Ryan and has reached out to the campaign to share his "extreme displeasure." NBC is reporting that Priebus, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich are "plotting an intervention" with Trump — which Trump’s campaign chair Paul Manafort denies. Richard Hanna became the first Republican Congress member to cross party lines and endorse Clinton for president.

Before the convention, Trump was making an effort to persuade the GOP establishment that he was an acceptable candidate. He picked Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. Manafort was brought in to professionalize the campaign. Trump's campaign speeches became more scripted.

But for Trump, a self-proclaimed dealmaking master, those negotiations with the GOP ended once he was declared the official Republican nominee. If the past two weeks are any indication, Trump is now free to do whatever he wants, and there's not much the rest of the party can do.

To recap: In the past two weeks, Trump has engaged in an extremely ill-advised feud with a Muslim Gold Star family, calling Khizr Khan a liar and asserting he was "bothered" by Trump’s plan to keep "radical Islam" out of the United States. His campaign staff has claimed Obama’s Iraq War policies were at fault for the Khans' son's death in 2004.

Trump has also said he would not necessarily defend the United State’s NATO allies if attacked by foreign powers and threatened to pull out of the World Trade Organization. On Wednesday, Joe Scarborough suggested that Trump had asked one of his foreign policy advisers "three times" why the United States couldn’t use its nuclear weapons.

Trump has also asserted that Hillary Clinton’s campaign would rig the November election against him. He’s warned Americans to pull out of the stock market. He’s said he would not endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan’s congressional run, and instead praised Ryan’s challenger. He’s refused to endorse Sen. John McCain, saying that McCain, a veteran, "has not done a good job for the vets." He’s also lambasted New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, claiming she has given him "zero support."