Republicans can drag democracy down with them … US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigns in South Bend, Indiana Donald Trump's pending presidential nomination has confirmed what many have argued for years: The Republican Party is not well.  – Bloomberg via Chicago Tribune

More and more, Donald Trump seems to us at least partially an extension of the Tea Party movement that the US mainstream media declared dead a few years ago.

Whether Trump wins or not, or whether his campaign and then his presidency is considered a "success" is in a sense incidental.

The larger question, (and this Bloomberg article addresses it in its own way) is one that we used to ask with some regularity: Are Western elites going to have to take a step back?

From a social, political, economic and investment perspective, what will the West and the world look like if the quasi-libertarian impulse represented by Trump and the Tea Party somehow emerge victorious in the US?

What Trump represents is like an incoming tide. You can divert it or dam it momentarily but it will not be halted in the longer term. It will reach its destination, whatever that is.

We've written a number of articles, for instance, pointing out that one of the unfortunate results of the Trump candidacy may be to inflame tensions between Hispanics and white, Western culture.

The idea is that these tensions can lead to a rapprochement that reignites a previous movement to further align and consolidate Mexican and US economies and even sociopolitical elements.

Additionally, some Trump statements have an authoritarian and populist ring to them that seem to indicate a Trump presidency would reinforce certain oppressive and anti-freedom aspects federal power.

But as Trump approaches, potentially, a successful destination, the ramifications of what he has accomplished – and may yet accomplish – should be considered seriously by anyone living in the US or affected by Western power.

This Bloomberg editorial is one attempt. Here's more:

The party's heightened political obstruction and ideological extremism during the presidency of Barack Obama undermined governing norms and political standards.

Now Republican voters have gone the distance, choosing a presidential candidate who functions as a … rhetorical riot, smashing to bits rudimentary expectations of competence, coherence and civility.

As Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver, wrote at Vox, "This represents the most colossal failure of an American political party in modern history."