Look who's 'trying to destroy the Republican Party'

            When the end comes, whether next year or next month, Donald Trump will wish he had Benito Mussolini's travel agent.

            That's a joke. When Mussolini met his end, he had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. At least his earthly departure was mercifully quick -- at the carbine end of fellow partisans.

            Sounds gruesome, but "quick" can be preferable to "extenuated" in such reckonings. To an out-of-office Trump, a chain-link enclosure at the border might sound like an inviting refuge.

            For when all this ends, Donald's partisan friends will want to kill him.

            Ah, blame. So much to share.

            "The Democrats are trying to destroy the Republican Party and all it stands for."

            Trump all-capped that tweet after the Ukraine bombshell — that the president of the United States asked the leader of Ukraine to find dirt on a political opponent — left his party searching for words among the shrapnel.

            The only words Republican leaders could find include weak mutterings about second-hand information. You see, the whistleblower didn't hear the transaction himself. He just heard it from people in the White House who were disturbed about the president pushing a foreign leader to do something to benefit himself, apparently using taxpayer money as leverage.

            Trump's apologists have found no words yet about the startling content of the transcript of the conversation.

            Trump, meanwhile, just blames the Democrats.

            He blamed Democrats for the labors of Robert Mueller, a lifelong Republican appointed by a Republican, in cataloging all the inexcusable things Team Trump did regarding Russia's aiding in Trump's election.

            Now he blames Democrats for the Ukraine thing. But then, we might know nothing if some Republicans in the White House – we are to assume Trump still hires only those – gave a whistleblower much to incriminate the boss.

            Trump blames the media, too. But we wouldn't know nearly as much as we do through media reports if Republicans in the White House didn't share what incriminating things they know.

            The latest: The Washington Post reports Trump told a delegation from Moscow he had no problem with Russia's role in 2016. And why should he? His adopted sugar daddy, Vlad Putin, helped him win.

            Trump blames the Democrats for creating this mess? He and fellow Republicans have done a good job of that all by themselves.

            No question: Things look bad for the Republican Party. However, Russia and Ukraine and hush money payments and Trump tax dodges are entirely secondary.

            Trump's party has managed to so alienate so many.

            People of color: The GOP has done an amazing job of alienating whole swaths of Americans.

            However, we aren't just talking about a president making racist comments and coddling white supremacists. The party's ardent efforts to tramp down voter turnout are aimed at minority participation. People of color are watching.

            The Republicans similarly have alienated young voters, brushing off all the biggest issues bothering them – climate change, gun violence, health coverage, college debt, affordable housing.

            The Republicans think that a tax cut as long-lasting as an Alka Seltzer tablet will make everything better. Ask a 30-something about that.

            Trump's lock-step alliance with the religious right has turned off young voters who support LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights.

            The same voters don't see birth control as a battlefield, as do Republicans who have waged war on Planned Parenthood. Many young Americans see the GOP's offensive as a war against low-income women.

            It's worth pointing out at this moment that Trump a few years ago was a pro-choice Democrat. However, when beset with the urge to infect the nation with his brand of leadership, some strategist convinced him that the best way to achieve his end was to do as the mullahs of the religious right, Big Energy and the gun lobby said.

            And he did, and now?

            Stephen Colbert had this to say about Trump's tweet the other night in another devastating monologue:

            Yes, Mr. President, the Democrats were trying to destroy the Republican Party, "but you beat them to it."

            Colbert is right. But let's acknowledge that among Republicans the destruction has been a collaborative effort.

            Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.