I know everyone’s shit is all emotional right now, but check it out:
If you leave your enemy no retreat, he will be forced to fight you to the death. You’re a fool if you think the establishment couldn’t do a lot of damage on the way out.

The goal is to take control of the party. NOT TO WIPE THE ESTABLISHMENT OUT. Give them a retirement fund and send them on their way.

It might be galling, but would represent more significant change than has happened in Washington in 100 years. Revenge might make you feel momentarily good, but won’t do anything to fix the country more than just taking control would.

Marco Rubio is no choice. He demonstrated failure and an extreme lack of wisdom with Shamnesty, joining with the Democrats and the GOP Establishment. And now he is the GOP Establishment’s whore or waterboy, take your pick. His puppy-dog adoption of the GOP Establishment is his second critically huge mistake (the first being Shamnesty). The Great Deceiver, the Great Betrayer. Remember the Marco Rubio who was at the top of the world when he bested Charlie Crist and emerged as a conservative Hope, a Hero of 2010. But that Rubio hope is dead and gone.

On the 1st part, necessary perhaps, but not sufficient.

Keep in mind that Trump’s appeal to voters is based less on the affirmative appeal of Trump himself and primarily on the negative appeal of the stoked opposition to the status quo and GOP.

Pro-Trump messaging works off of the primary anti-GOP negative appeal.

As such, if the GOP candidates prioritize targeted anti-Trump messaging, their strategy will be off target from the main reason for Trump’s voter appeal among the (converting) Republican base.

The priority for the GOP campaigns must be to neutralize the anti-GOP negative appeal. When that piece is established, then targeted anti-Trump messaging can be made effective.

In short, it’s a precondition, framing issue in the critical Narrative contest for the zeitgeist. The GOP campaigns must re-set the frame, which likely requires re-laying the foundation of the political discourse.

On your 2nd point, yes.

Rubio and Cruz should not> be leading the targeted anti-Trump messaging. The GOP and its candidates have other campaigning tasks to prioritize. Anti-Trump messaging is properly undertaken by conservatives vigorously, zealously, collectively working as Marxist-method activists.

The top vulnerability for the GOP – long exploited by Democrat-front Left activists and picked up by “jayvee” Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right activists – has been the dearth of competitive Right activism due to conservatives who chronically reject activism out of hand, despite the glaringly obvious growing need for Right activism to compete in the only social cultural/political game there is.

Meanwhile, rather than admit their liability for the deteriorating condition of American society, conservatives have habitually passed the buck to the GOP for the cultural, political harms that have resulted from conservatives’ willful negligence in choosing not to compete for real.

Even as it became evident early on with the Trump phenomenon that the activist game trumped traditional electoral politics for the 2016 presidential election, most conservatives – as demonstrated in comments here – have stubbornly clung to a traditional electoral frame while Trump-front activists have run roughshod merely by mimicking the Left.

So here we are. The GOP and its candidates can’t save the situation on their own. They need conservative to deploy teams of zealous capable activists in the arena ASAP. “Cuckservative” conservatives who are targeted for displacement by the alt-Right insurgency can no longer afford – not that they ever could afford – to pass the buck to the GOP on the activist game.

It’s overdue for conservatives to collectively go all in adapting Marxist-method activism and stride into the arena to compete head-on, vigorously and zealously, for the sake of their political position in American society.

expat:
“It would also be good if Rubio and Cruz would add some messages for millenials to their stump speeches.”

Yes. While a vitalized conservative (counter-)activist movement performs the lead role of grappling with the alt-Right insurgency throughout the arena, in complement, it’s incumbent on Rubio and Cruz to focus on a re-set of the political discourse.

Re-set the frame of the political discourse, which may require re-laying the foundation, in order to neutralize the anti-GOP negative appeal that’s the main reason for Trump’s voter appeal among the disaffected Republican base .

With millenials and everyone else, I recommend the GOP candidates undertake straight talk to the people. Explain – like Neo does – what has happened with Congress and the President, especially the circumstances that have angered the base. Explain the measures they’ve taken and attempted, or not attempted, and why under the circumstances. And, like Neo’s starting hope for the 2016 presidential election, they should connect the dots by explaining what they can do and plan to do with the presidency while also upholding the integrity of the republic if given the chance by the people.

Establish a better narrative.

Have they already been doing this? With wary half-measures, yes. They need to redouble their efforts.

However, the GOP candidates can only be effective in this task if conservative activists establish the conditions in the arena with successful head-on competition versus the alt-Right insurgency (which may also include Left activists who may include foreign operatives).

It’s a fitness test. A successful conservative counter-insurgency would serve as compelling evidence to the base of a vitalized competitive character for the GOP and conservative activists which would, in and of itself underlying the issues, do much to undercut Trump’s voter appeal.

Clinton 3,497,829
Trump 2,937,761
Cruz 2,493,321
Sanders 2,210,083
Rubio 1,872,392
Kasich 542,301
Carson 490,932

Kasich is simply a tool for the eGOP and an empty suit.
No Thanks, !!!

Rubio, Carson and Kasich should end their campaigns and endorse Cruz. NOW!

But they won’t. Instead they’ll hand the keys of the kingdom to Trump.

Cruz beat Rubio by 600,000 votes (Edged him according to Fox news!) but its the same number of votes Trump beat Cruz by.

‘I thought Cruz did better than I was expecting’

As far as I can tell, Cruz is the only candidate who has consistently beat his poll numbers in almost every contest (he’s averaged about 5% higher than his polls). So he still has a chance but only if the others leave the race soon.