Trump's Nomination Was No Accident. The GOP Admitting Its Racism Was.

When a broad swath of the Republican leadership endorsed Trump, it openly condemned itself to owning its racist underpinnings. Now, what to do?

Hey, Ryan, you opened your yap, now you can't take it back.

Michael Gerson -- for the umpteenth time and not the last -- wrote another GOP "holy shit what have we done" column for the WaPo. How can we regret the Donald? Let me count the ways:

When the choice [of endorsing Trump] came, only a handful of Republicans at the national level answered with a firm “no.” A handful. It was not shocking to me that the plurality of an angry Republican primary electorate — grown distrustful of establishment leaders — might choose a populist who appeals to racial prejudice. It is shocking to me — and depressing and infuriating — that almost no elected Republicans of national standing would stand up to it.

There's nothing really shocking about this at all, unless it's Michael Gerson's ignorance of the fact that the GOP has been courting racists since Nixon pushed for -- and succeeded in -- grabbing the South after the Democrats alienated region by favoring the civil rights acts of the mid-60s. Now the Solid South -- and its many mirrors in the Rust Belt and the Mountain West -- is home to Trump's legions of disaffected white males who, at their core, blame "the other" for their problems. Trump just lit their rage on fire, stoking it with racist and nativist vitriol.

Earth to Michael Gerson: All these years of pumping up the conservative cause? You own this shit, too. You're just more publicly trying to wipe it off is all.