Given a Republican incumbent who has never exceeded 50% in Gallup's approval ratings poll and who won the presidency thanks to a dysfunctional Electoral College, the party is nevertheless determined to give Donald Trump a fair shot at re-election by sabotaging itself. In fact, it's veering so far to the left it could lose an election in 1950s Bulgaria.

Democratic socialist ideas appear to be making significant headway in the party. The Democratic part is fine, the socialism part is not. It suggests a massive government intrusion in the economy that has not worked elsewhere — post-war Great Britain or that contemporary mess called Venezuela — and that, in a cultural sense, is un-American. Time and time again, the American people have shown they want nothing to do with socialism. While socialist movements have at times been politically strong in Europe, such has not been the case in America. This, in fact, is one of the original meanings of the phrase "American exceptionalism."