Why the GOP can’t touch Trump

How has the Republican establishment tried, and failed, to take out Donald Trump?

All three would blow up the deficit by trillions of dollars, losing more tax revenue as a share of economic output than any tax cut on record.

All three promise to build a wall on the Mexican border, and both Cruz and Trump want to round up and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Party elders and campaign rivals have doubled down on claims that Trump’s not a “true conservative” and that he may not uphold his hard-line rightist stances.

[...] elites try targeting Trump’s opacity and lack of accountability in his financial dealings.

Rubio, Cruz and John Kasich all purport to have released their “tax returns,” but in fact the abbreviated documents they’ve published leave out charitable donations, income sources and all the other substantive details that are part of a real tax return.

Yet when asked during the last debate whether they’d support Trump if he became the Republican nominee, every candidate left standing pledged he would.

Maybe it’s because party honchos have been too cowardly to do the one thing that might convince Republican voters that Trump is a real threat.