As I’ve noted previously, Trump was elected without the support of the GOP establishment, so he could have decided to govern as a man above party, and encouraged the Democrats to compete for his favor. Instead, he decided to embrace the right wing of the Republican Party, and any hope of winning Democratic support is long gone.
This has implications for the GOP as a whole as well as for Trump. If Trump had operated as a de facto third party, they could have kept their distance from him, and avoided, at least to some extent, being tarnished by his scandals. That can’t happen now; he’s one of them, so they’re stuck with him. They will pay the price for it in 2018 and 2020.
The worst case scenario for the GOP is being associated with Trump without actually accomplishing any of their cherished policy objectives. That is becoming more likely by the day, because they have not been able to find a way to overcome the ideological differences that I discuss almost on a daily basis.
How can the GOP escape this trap? They either have to hope that Trump can somehow turn it around, or they have to aggressively take the lead on impeaching him. Both outcomes are unlikely.