On Dec. 7, Trump urged a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." Until we can "determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses," Trump said of the terrorism inducing "hatred" that he spotted from Muslims toward America, "our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life."

"We have no choice," he later told a crowd at a campaign event in South Carolina.

Trump was immediately denounced — by Democrats, some of his fellow GOP presidential candidates, the Republican Party establishment at the state and national level, religious groups of all denominations, immigration scholars, foreign leaders. Pretty much anyone a reporter could find.

Yet he stuck by his comments on Tuesday, and while many blasted Trump's idea as offensive and anti-American, it also resonates. It's easily understood why many folks might rally behind his suggestion, for instance, when you consider that Tashfeen Malik, the female killer in the San Bernardino massacre, was born in Pakistan and lived in Saudi Arabia — the same country, by the way, that produced 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers — before immigrating to the United States last year.

So as Trump channels the identity of a large, worried segment of the American population — and who knows yet if it is big enough to make him president — Republican leaders wring their hands about his nomination upending their chances to seize control of the White House from the Democrats — especially their main nemesis, Hillary Clinton.

But that woe-is-us attitude and a few mealy-mouthed swipes at Trump in the media won't cut it. Reckoning with this political force majeure will require some narrowing within the GOP's presidential ranks, and quickly.

It's time many of the GOP candidates do some soul-searching. The Huffington Post news website has aggregated and averaged 228 polls conducted by 33 different pollsters over the past three years, and the results are telling. Just four candidates — Trump, Cruz, Rubio and Carson — are the only ones posting percentages in double digits. Bush is running fifth at 4 percent; four candidates are below 1 percent. The remaining 10 trailing the front four have the right, obviously, to continue to slog it out. But the more the anti-Trump Republican vote, such as it now exists, is split, the greater the odds that The Donald will become the GOP standard-bearer.

REPRINTED FROM THE JACKSONVILLE DAILY NEWS

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