Choose Your Own Misadventure!

The fun thing about Donald Trum—

Whoa, whoa, time out. We need to establish some ground rules here. There’s a giant meteor hurtling toward Earth, on course to destroy us all at, like, midnight. All attempts to dislodge it from its path — lasers, nuclear-powered space farts, distracting it with a seductive meteor circling Venus — have failed. Humanity is doomed.

What do we do on the final day of our collective existence?

We fuck like bunnies, of course. No way we’re not enjoying the last moment left us.

So let us grant that a year from now we could all be eating cockroaches while hiding from the zombies that were unleashed when President Trump demanded that The Wall be painted with that cool new virus in the CDC vaults. This would be, we can all agree, a Bad Thing.

Meanwhile, let’s all enjoy Life As We’ve Known It while we can, by entertaining amusing hypotheticals that soon enough will be as meaningless as human attempts at civilization.

Cool? Cool.

So the fun thing about Donald Trump is that both parties fear him: Democrats fear he’ll win the election. Republicans fear he’ll win the nomination.

The fears are inversely proportional: Either Trump is too strong to be stopped in November, or Trump is so toxic he’ll take his party down with him.

Last summer, we and most Democrats would have agreed with Republicans today: Yes, please, nominate that racist gasbag. We’ll send you flowers when we’re done with him.

But times change, especially times that encompass nineteen primaries. Republicans still believe Trump is an albatross, and we hope to god they’re right. But when we’re not in prayerful meditation, we’re seeing enthusiasm and high turnout, and we’re thankful that Republicans can’t recognize the New Reagan in their midst.

Instead, resigned to Trump’s lead, and the failure of Marco Rubio to establish his credentials as an adult human, Establishment Republicans are considering a new strategy: If you can’t beat him, cheat him.

It works like this: A candidate needs 50 percent of GOP delegates — 1,237 putative warm bodies — to win the nomination. And while delegates are assigned based on primary results, those assignments are only (or mostly) binding on the first ballot. And the delegates themselves aren’t necessarily Trump supporters — they’re pretty much GOP Establishment by definition, since who else attends conventions?

So: Prevent Trump from reaching 1,237 before the convention, let him flame out on the first ballot, retire to Smoke-Filled Rooms — none of that PC smoke-free crap here, thank you — and bestow upon a grateful party the candidate you wanted to install in the first place.

You might notice a few problems with this.

First, while you may be greeted as liberators in the room, all those vociferous Trump supporters you’re blowing off may not take kindly to being, uh, blown.

But that’s part of the plan: Cede the White House. If you can’t win the presidency anyway, at least nominate someone who won’t take down Congress as collateral damage.

Which makes perfect strategic sense. Until you think about it.

If Trump has a commanding delegate lead going into the convention, and comes out without a nomination, all those record-turnout primary Base voters are gonna be mighty pissed — and they’re not going to limit their wrath to the top of the ticket. They’re gonna burn it all down, staying home instead of voting like dutiful sheep.

This may not guarantee a Democratic sweep in November, but there won’t be talk about an Enthusiasm Gap this year, since nobody will give a shit on either side.

Another alternative is to jump in bed with Ted Cruz as a Lesser Trump: Equally batshit, but at least with solid Teabagger Cred, even if he’s The Most-Hated Man in Washington. And maybe you don’t lose as much enthusiasm that way, but if the point of the exercise is to prevent Trump from taking the party down with him — by driving up Democratic turnout — we’re not sure how Rafael produces a different result: He’s just as skeery to the rest of us.

Not that you can’t elect a creep as president. But if your only evidence is Nixon, you have a tough case to make.

(You can elect a creep as vice-president, of course, but only you front him with an amiable clown.)

And that’s why, in the time remaining until Nuclear Winter snuffs us all a year from now — or, if we’re lucky, the aliens land at Devils Tower and beguile us with their cosmic musical wisdom — we’re going to enjoy the trouble Trump is causing them, and ignore the trouble he’ll cause us.

Because if we’re fucked anyway, we might as well get some fucking out of it.