Why is Trump Getting So Many Delegates if the Repubs Hate Him So Much?

[AFTT47]

He's still only polling a plurality even with the race down to  two and a half. That plurality appears to be solid though - unfazed by significant attacks against him. It continuously looks like he'll retain his delegate lead but will have a hard time winning a majority.

As to the meat of the OP question, the shepherds have lost the flock. We saw the beginnings of this four years ago when it took the bulk of the primary for Mitt Romney to shake off Rick Santorum - a man who makes Trump look sane. The base Republican voters have stopped buying what the Republican establishment is selling. Rather than going Democrat or even independent, they're turning to ever more fringe Republican candidates.

The Republican party is in some serious shit right now. They need to reinvent themselves. They need to present a sane platform, one that is a reasonable alternative to the Democratic party. It need not be one which everyone will agree with but it needs to be a platform worthy of consideration. They don't have that now. They have fallen so far behind the times and are so out of touch with the average American, Republican voters are turning to ever-more fringe candidates like Trump. The party needs to get in line with the 21st century and do it quick or they will go the way of the Whigs.

Having a primarily Republican family, the general idea they hold is that their defeats in the last two Presidential elections is due to the candidates not being conservative enough.  Let that sink in for a moment.  They've convinced themselves that past failures were Republicans In Name Only, and that a True Conservative™ is the way to go moving forward.  They point to the Tea Party success during the midterm elections as proof of this hypothesis rather than a continuation of liberals simply not giving a shit and voting like they usually don't.

So, they're purposely expunging moderates in the party in favor of radicals because they think that's what America wants.  They think it's the path to victory.  The end result is an ever divided country, with the radical conservatives slowly representing an actual legitimate danger to everyone else (see: the Bundy clan, the assault on protesters at Trump rallies).

Rational, non-"Let's embrace some weird bible fueled vision of twisted 1950s Americana" conservatives are pissed and scared and shitting themselves because the brand is becoming irrevocably tarnished.  They opened their tent to barbarians and were ousted from it by them.

I do think that the GOP will change, either with this election or soon.  There's a huge rift forming, and I don't think the smart ones want to be associated with the crazies any longer.

I wonder if the thinking that candidates were not conservative enough began as just one alternative to the establishment. Now, we have a guy (Trump) who may be ultra-conservative regarding national defense but is obviously not a Christian-right guy - even though he may try to sell himself as one. It looks like they're searching for something non-establishment - no matter what it is. That tells me that the party as-is is not viable and needs to change.