'It is not simply that Trump lacks consistent conservative principles;
rather, he lacks any principles whatsoever'
We suspect that when he gave Donald Trump the opportunity to unify the party, Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) knew Trump wouldn’t be able to do it. Someone as narcissistic and as devoid of conservative principles as Trump couldn’t become a conciliatory, minimally coherent Republican.
Still, he probably did not expect Trump to blow it so quickly and vividly.
In the space of a few days, Trump’s campaign chief, Paul Manafort, told movement conservatives that the agenda of the GOP is now whatever Trump believes (which varies from day to day). Trump declared that 'don’t forget, this is called the Republican Party. It’s not called the Conservative Party.'
This is a man with no grounding in any ideology, telling the party that being Republican means whatever he wants it to mean. Great way to chase those people for whom politics is about something other than winning and losing, huh?