Donald Trump is trying to rebrand the Republican Party
And it's not what the establishment had in mind when they tried to steer the party on a different path after Mitt Romney's crushing loss in 2012.
Joshua Green wrote for Bloomberg:
By obliterating Jeb [Bush], Trump redefined the Republican Party's identity off the top of his head. And his vision of the GOP's future is in many ways the diametrical opposite of what Priebus and the party Establishment had imagined.
Trump, who on Thursday was projected to have secured enough delegates to win the GOP nomination, told Bloomberg where he sees the future of the party.
"Five, 10 years from now - different party. You're going to have a worker's party," Trump said.
"A party of people that haven't had a real wage increase in 18 years, that are angry," he added. "What I want to do, I think cutting Social Security is a big mistake for the Republican Party. And I know it's a big part of the budget. Cutting it the wrong way is a big mistake, and even cutting it" at all.
Trump admitted that much of his politics are instinctual. Whereas the RNC released an in-depth analysis of why Republicans lost the 2012 election and what the party needs to do moving forward, Trump suggested he's able to sense what people want and channel their anger to shape his own policy.
"My views are what everybody else's views are," Trump said. "When I give speeches, sometimes I'll sign autographs and I'll get to talk to people and learn a lot about the party."
Trump is playing to the opposite instincts of party insiders who wrote the "autopsy" report after the 2012 election.
That report concluded that if "Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States (i.e., self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next sentence" and called for "comprehensive immigration reform."
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus told Bloomberg that the party should focus on "tone" and "inclusiveness" to avoid alienating minorities.
Trump, on the other hand, has been a polarizing force. He has said he would deport the approximately 11 million people who are living in the US illegally and build a wall on the southern border of the US.
And Trump's support among minorities is at rarely-before-seen lows, according to a recent poll.
Bloomberg described Trump as "a walking exaggeration of every negative attribute the autopsy had warned against." And yet, he went on to defeat more than a dozen establishment challengers to become the party's next presidential nominee.
"It is an issue Donald Trump's going to have to face in a fascinating way," Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, told Business Insider in March. "Because if much of the evidence is true that he's bringing in new voters and the Republican turnout is up, the question is can he change the math? But I'm very worried that Trump is going to do dismally with African-Americans and with Hispanics."