RUSH: All right, look. It really doesn’t matter whether I think Cruz is cheating or not. Some of you do, and that’s as far as it goes. You don’t… But I’m gonna try to explain this to you because I think it is very important that everybody understand this. Now, I just said closing out the previous hour something, apparently, very provocative. My e-mail is blowing up. I’m thinking ahead down the road. I’m asking myself, what happens here if the establishment succeeds in beating Trump? For this discussion, it doesn’t matter whether they do it legitimately or quote/unquote “cheat.”

At the end of this, if Trump doesn’t get the nomination after all of this, then what’s next? Now, Pat Buchanan has written that he thinks it doesn’t really matter because Trump has ignited a new nationalistic populist movement which will not be denied, and that, if they don’t get there this year, this movement now has found out how powerful it is and how many people are in it; that in certain polling senses they are a majority. A number of people oppose immigration, want a wall, and have trade deal opposition. So Buchanan says that…

And, by the way, he’s not hoping for this. But if Trump doesn’t get the nomination, he says that that doesn’t matter because this group of people, the Trumpists — the people supporting Trump. Buchanan believes they’re actually supporting more than Trump. They are supporting a set of ideas and principles that will survive Trump. And that a new movement has been born, that the genie’s out of the bottle, that the establishment will not be able to put back in the bottle.

Doug Schoen, who is a Democrat pollster and strategist who also appears on the evil and dreaded Fox News Channel where he does analysis — usually sitting next to, I think, Monica Crowley or whoever they put him with, just to balance it out. You know, “fair and balanced,” you decide. Doug has a piece here. (chuckles) Oh, look! It’s at Fox News. And the headline: “Donald Trump Saw What Politicians Ignored. And Then he Disrupted American Politics.” And his theme is this.

“In future elections, we may not have someone as outlandish as Trump. But his legacy will surely have paved the way for leaders who may not know anything about governing, but know a lot about how people are feeling.” I gather from this… Here the headline: “Donald Trump Saw What Politicians Ignored. And Then he Disrupted American Politics.” He quite correctly notes the genuine depth of anger that a majority of Americans feel, and he thinks — I guess along the line with Buchanan — that a new movement has begun here.

I don’t deny that. I mean, I don’t deny that the people who think what they think are gonna stop thinking it, and I don’t doubt that there’s a lot of them. But my only point is this. This is how serious it is. If the establishment succeeds or if Ted Cruz — and those are two different entities, by the way. Ted Cruz is not the establishment right now. So you’ve got two entities working against Trump. You got Cruz from the campaign angle; you’ve got the establishment from their own angle. If either or both succeed in stopping Trump, where does this movement go?

I have no doubt they might abandon the Republican Party. But my instincts tell me that… What’s the objective here? If you’re a Trumpist, what’s the objective? After winning, besides winning, what’s the objective? It’s to abolish this insider club, right? It’s to abolish the establishment. It’s to get rid of it once and for all, realizing you’re only gonna be able to do that on the Republican side. (chuckling) The Democrats are not gonna let anybody come in and kick them out of it — and I don’t think the Republicans are, either.

But let’s say that that’s the ultimate objective is to just get rid of this club, is to get rid of all of this insider stuff, all the favoritism, all the back scratching, all the cronyism, all the unfairness, you know, all the greasing skids for everybody’s kids so all they have to do is grow up and they’re automatic successes and all this is. Get rid of it, blow it up, and turn it back over to a merit based. I’m here to tell you that if the establishment beats back this effort, nobody’s gonna come along and take it away from ’em again. (interruption)

Why are you shaking your head in there? (interruption) You doubt my premise? (interruption) Well, my only point here is that the objective is to… If the problem is perceived to be the establishment, which it is, and Trump is the vehicle for victory overwhelming, overcoming the establishment, what happens if Trump doesn’t win? The establishment holds on. If Trump doesn’t win, no matter what. If the Trumpists represent one half of the voters of the Republican Party, and then if every one of them stops voting Republican, that is not gonna end the Republican establishment.

And, furthermore, the Republican establishment won’t care. That’s the problem. They won’t care. As long as they hold on to their fiefdom, as long as there is a Republican Party, and as long as the people who run it continue to run it, then beating back this latest insurgency, they will consider to be a victory. Not whether they win the White House or not. Their first order of business right now is to beat back the insurgency, the rabble-rousers, the peasants with the pitchforks.

That’s their first objective right now. And if they have to roll up their sleeves and work with Ted Cruz for a couple of months to do it, they’ll do it. But then Cruz is gonna be their next target. (interruption) Don’t doubt me. (interruption) Don’t shake your heads in there. Don’t doubt me on this. These are people hanging on for dear life. These are people in a car that has gone over the cliff; it’s sinking to the bottom of the lake. They’re struggling to get the windows open and swim out of that car, and they’re gonna do everything they can to live.

They’re not gonna allow Trump to push that car over the cliff with the doors and windows locked, or Cruz, for that matter. So my only point is this: If Trump, as a candidate, ends up being defeated, and if he doesn’t get to 1,237, do you see him winning on a second or third ballot, given what you’ve seen happen this weekend? Well, some people don’t, but even though you’ve gotta realize something. If everybody’s out there buying delegates, don’t forget Trump has Mar-a-Lago.

I mean, if you’re gonna wine and dine delegates, Trump’s got Trump Force One. I mean, Trump’s… There you go once again: Insulting delegates, thinking they can be bought off with… (interruption) Well, can I give you some names? (chuckling) No, folks, I’m just kidding. Look, the anti-establishment movement is real. It’s a lot of people. But if it doesn’t succeed in making great, great inroads in the establishment this time around, it’s gonna be a long time before it happens again. The establishment’s gonna be well girded, well protected — and this is for keeps. That’s why…

I’m sorry. All of this is precisely why the focus on Hillary and Obama and the Democrats hasbeen lost, because right now people are in a life-and-death struggle over their identity, their self-worth and any number of other things.