Its the best of times, and the worst of times, for the GOP. Trump has finally gone too far down Racism Road and Republicans across a wide spectrum of the party now feel free to criticize the Donald right out in the open. Conservative rock stars like Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney, as well as several of the candidates themselves, and influential right wing “Establishment” commentators and pundits, now have the green light to attack the Donald without fear of retribution from his trog followers.

And not a moment too soon, either. Not only were the Libs gleefully making political hay of Trump’s remarks, (some were even openly invoking the F-word. Imagine that!)but he was also distracting Conservatives from the usual cicada drone against Obama and Clinton. The man has become more than an embarrassment, he has become an outright inconvenience. Nobody is listening to Obama’s refusal to utter the phrase “Muslim terrorist”, nobody is talking about the Iran Treaty and absolutely no one is thinking about Benghazi, or Hillary’s emails.

I doubt if these events will make Donald Trump go away, but perhaps they have set a constraint to his growth. Of course, this only leaves the GOP with another problem: perhaps Trump is no longer in danger of being the nominee, but the issue now is how will his supporters be divided up among the rest of the candidates. And how will this be done without alienating those who fully share the Trump perception of reality? This is not a trivial challenge for the RNC. The Trump fan club comprises about half the Republican Party. And if they feel the Establishment has unfairly silenced their hero, that they have gone full RINO, there will be hell to pay on election day.

Keep an eye on Cruz. The Trump machine has just slung a rod, and Cruz has downshifted, stomped on the throttle and pulled off his rear bumper to pass, only slightly on the left. But we won’t know for sure if he can pull ahead until the next poll results are in.