Will Trump drop out?

[GeorgiaModerate]

Let's be realistic: Trump is toast.  Will he step aside on his own, be forced out by the RNC, or try to hang in there?

[GeorgiaModerate]

Not unless someone who is entirely suitable to us in the Trumpletariet is put on the ticket in his place. So they need a literal Trumpist. Someone like Jeff Sessions.

As far as I'm concerned, we already won the election. We restored control of the Republican Party to the grassroots. Whatever good happens next is icing on the cake and has been from the moment Trump's son put him over the top on the convention roll call.

Yeah, we won the election by losing it!

Nonsense.

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

[GeorgiaModerate]

Its too late for him to drop out.

This. He cannot be swapped out on the ballot at this point. Not that he'd drop out anyway. But if I may indulge this fantasy for a second, the way it could be done is Mike Pence could try to stage a coup. Pence could publicly denounce Trump and, possibly with the support of Ryan and Priebus, call upon the Republican electors to put him at the top of the ticket when it comes time to cast their electoral votes. That's closer to a bad House of Cards plotline than a thing would logistically be possible, but that's the only way it could be done.

And how would Trump supporters react to this?  Not to mention Trump himself, a man who always punches back when attacked (and I'm sure he would perceive this as an attack.)

The GOP is caught between a rock and a hard place here.  If they dump Trump, they lose his hard-core supporters; if they don't, they lose Republicans who are appalled by all this.  The Presidency is lost for them this year; all they can do is try to limit the down-ballot damage.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Here is the plan. At the debate, Trump deflects questions about hot mic, and lashes away at Hillary and the revelations about her. Then in his closing statement, Trump says he understands that his comments are drowning out everything else, and that he has become a distraction, and thus he is dropping out, and urges everyone to vote for Pence. Whether it works better to just leave the ticket in place, with the electors saying they will all vote for Pence, or to formally drop out, and litigate what appears on the ballot, and so forth, are mere details, for the wonks to work out.

I was about to say this is crazy, but then I realized that it's no more implausible than many things that have already happened in this election!