Donald Trump has left Republican election hopes in tatters - all by taking conservative views seriously

Trump’s bold statements have proven spot-on throughout his entire campaign. He’s simply been reading the Republican playbook aloud for all to hear – and Christian fundamentalists are lapping it up, while politicians in the party despair

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That’s it. The fight for the Republican presidential nomination is done and dusted – and thank God for that. After delivering a clean sweep in New England, Donald Trump has pretty much snatched the Republican party's crown of thorns right out from under its clueless leaders.

If you believe in LGBT rights, Mexican sovereignty or a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, this will all seem pretty damn terrifying. And if you think you’re terrified, just imagine how Republicans must feel.

Thanks to this walking, talking caricature of American conservatism, every right-winger knows this year’s general election is now a write-off. Pollsters on both sides of the political spectrum have already called the game for Hillary Clinton. Yet, in a desperate feign of unity, GOP supporters will be expected to waste the next six months of their lives and hundreds of millions of dollars pretending Trump would actually make a half-competent world leader.

That will be a particularly soul-destroying exercise for the countless lifelong Republicans who’ve spent the past few weeks slagging off Trump from every rooftop they can find. After all, the gilded real estate mogul be labelled a nutty, wannabe fascist by some – but every Republican who now fails to stand behind him will inevitably be outed as a traitorous, neoliberal vegan.

How delicious is that?

Say what you want about Donald Trump, but the guy is clever. From the very instant he declared his intention to run for office, Trump has treated his campaign like some sort of ideological science project. Rather than tell voters what he really thinks about the issues, he seems to have decided to simply regurgitate juicy, textbook definitions of Republicans' supposed core beliefs right back into their own mouths.

Conservatives claim to be anti-abortion, so Trump’s natural conclusion was to declare that all women who have one should face legal punishment. Republicans tend to be anti-immigration, and so Trump figured he should threaten to deport every foreigner he could get his grubby little fingers on. And we all know Republicans are afraid of the Middle East, so Trump decided to double down by calling for a national "ban" on Muslims.

All of these outrageous proclamations shocked the globe – never mind Trump’s so-called far-right competitors. They were desperately queuing up for months just to get a few seconds of airtime and tell voters how much of an idiot the guy is. They assured us wholeheartedly that Trump was nothing but a clown, and claimed his thoughts on Islam, migration and abortion were in no way compatible with Republican ideals. But who were they kidding?

Trump’s bold statements have proven spot-on throughout his entire campaign. He’s simply been reading the standard GOP playbook aloud, for all to hear – and the Christian fundamentalists are lapping it up. In turn, we’ve discovered two truths about the once-formidable Republican Party: that pretty much every self-proclaimed conservative politician in Washington doesn’t actually walk the walk, and that a silent majority of GOP voters are just as crazy as previously feared.

The implications of those discoveries will stretch far beyond November’s general election. Donald Trump hasn’t simply lost Republicans the White House – the guy has knocked his own party back decades. What’s worse, he’s done it by reminding us exactly what it is the GOP stands for.

It's almost enough to make you feel bad for conservatives. Not quite, but almost.