It is not Donald Trump’s fault that his newly-adopted party seems on the verge of nominating the only candidate who cannot defeat an un-indicted Hillary Clinton.

The Barack Obama regime, 7+ years of training-wheels socialism and flaccid national security, has not just brought America to its knees but has provoked a temper tantrum on the part of 35% of Republican Party voters. All Republicans (with the possible exception of their newest party member, Mr. Trump) are infuriated by President Obama, but the majority of the Party did not blow a gasket in looking for a replacement. The majority would have preferred to bank their fires, cool their heels, and pick a decent candidate who could end the Obama Experiment responsibly.

Instead, Mr. Trump stepped into the breach, seemingly as a stunt rather than a serious venture, and became the willing beneficiary of the inability of the 35% to ignore the urgings of a corps of supposedly conservative commentators who thrive on conflict and adored the prospect of garnering massive attention through the windfall of a human headline-machine. If people such as Limbaugh, Levin, Coulter, and Ingraham had disdained the Trump candidacy because most of Mr. Trump’s policy preferences run contrary to the conservative principles the commentators had spent their careers claiming to embrace, if they had resisted the urge to treat immigration policy as though it were the only important issue, Mr. Trump’s campaign might never have gained traction. Had the radio folks addressed immigration reform more thoughtfully, had they laughed at the outrageous behavior of Trump rather than exalting it as an appropriate expression of public frustration, the primary race would have produced a more-instructive debate over various alternative platforms for immigration reform.

But the commentators did not do any of those things. Instead, they pandered to the 35%: they obsessed over immigration and over the inability of the Republicans in Congress to overcome the insuperable legal obstacles presented by presidential vetoes and executive orders, and they scape-goated the “establishment” for that inability. They provoked a civil war within the Republican Party. They fomented rebellion and encouraged the 35% to indulge themselves, and now we face the prospect of a socialist or closet-socialist president and a permanent end to the great American experiment with a liberal democratic republic committed to free people and free markets.

Among the dangerous problems that the country will face if Mr. Trump takes down the Republican Party and we elect the Democrats’ nominee, is that America has almost never reversed a governmental entitlement-program or other handout-program.  If you doubt the likelihood of a huge uptick in new expenditures beyond even the elevated levels to which Mr. Obama has driven us, think about the spectre of Ms. Clinton and Mr. Sanders competing to see which of them can come up with the more expensive set of increases in our already-unpayable entitlements and other schemes for the redistribution of incomes and wealth. Bear in mind that actual condition of our Social Security and Medicare programs is hidden from the public by a massive accounting scam that fails to disclose the many, many trillions of dollars of additional liabilities that would have been accrued – and added to the published figure for our national debt – had the feds held themselves to the same accounting standards as they impose upon Wall Street.

But the most important issue involving the future of our country, the one that dwarfs everything else, is the issue of the composition of the Supreme Court. It is of paramount importance because of the power of the Court to resolve so many important disputes, including the most fundamental constitutional issue of our time: separation of powers. In comparison, that issue far outweighs the significance of what a left-leaning Court might do with regard to abortion, gay marriage, LGBT matters, racial quotas, and other so-called social issues.

When non-lawyers complain about President Obama’s Executive Orders and federal regulations and other such devices for governing as a monarch or dictator would, what they are reacting to is the undermining of the constitutional authority of Congress, its mandated role as the only branch of government with the power to legislate. As utilized by this President, E.O.s and regulations, unless and until overruled by the Supremes on the ground that they exceed the authority of the executive branch, represent government-by-fiat, which is the signature of authoritarian governments. Once the abuse of our constitutional structure by a rogue President has been approved by the Supremes, the game is over; we are no longer a democratic republic, we are Rome under an authoritarian emperor, with a neutered, impotent Senate. If we elect a President Clinton and she gets to replace not just Justice Scalia but, say, Justice Ginsburg and even one of the conservative justices, we will have an imbalance on the Supreme Court that the country might never be able to correct, one that might deliver the coup de grace to our beleaguered nation.

So, why is this not Mr. Trump’s fault? It is because he is not evil, he is just a weak and flawed and un-conservative and decidedly un-virtuous man, willing to take the whole country down because he is having so much fun. Hard to blame him for yielding to the temptation. Similarly, it is hard to blame the 35% of the Republican electorate for acting out, as they are behaving just as we have raised them, as we have encouraged them to behave: as selfish, self-centered people who are quite willing to indulge their personal frustrations by misbehaving. And because we have allowed them to become totally ignorant of the history and purposes of this nation, of the ways in which we really are exceptional.