New York Times in scathing editorial: 'It's Donald Trump's party now'

Donald Trump is now effectively the Republican nominee for president, and The New York Times published a scathing editorial in Wednesday's edition decrying the party's "trek into darkness."

The Times called Trump "the most volatile and least prepared presidential candidate nominated by a major party in modern times" and lamented that "a man once ridiculed by many prominent Republicans" will now become the GOP's standard-bearer.

The editorial continued:

This is a moment of reckoning for the Republican Party. It's incumbent on its leadership to account for the failures and betrayals that led to this, and find a better way to address them than the demagogy on offer.

Republicans haven't yet begun to grapple with this. Instead they're falling into line.

Republican leaders have for years failed to think about much of anything beyond winning the next election. Year after year, the party's candidates promised help for middle-class people who lost their homes, jobs and savings to recession, who lost limbs and well-being to war, and then did next to nothing. That Mr. Trump was able to enthrall voters by promising simply to "Make America Great Again" - but offering only xenophobic, isolationist or fantastical ideas - is testimony to how thoroughly they reject the politicians who betrayed them.

The editorial concluded: "It is the Republicans who are making a clear choice in 2016, one that seemed unimaginable a year ago: To stamp what they still like to call the party of Lincoln with the brand of Donald Trump."

Trump's main rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination Tuesday night after Trump won the Indiana primary. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus tweeted that Trump is now the presumptive nominee, calling on the party to unite against Trump's likely Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton.

The Indiana win put Trump on a glide path to obtain the needed 1,237 delegates necessary to win the nomination. Both The Associated Press and NBC News gave Trump at least 45 of the 57 delegates available in the state. With those delegates counted, Trump stood less than 200 delegates away from securing the GOP nomination.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich is the only remaining Republican in the race. He has said that he will stay in until Trump reaches the required number of delegates to secure the nomination.

Read the full editorial at The New York Times >

Allan Smith contributed to this report.