Three ways politics will change, whether Trump wins or not

With Marco Rubio out of the race, the anti-Trump forces within the Republican Party are now more united than ever. Whether or not they prove able to stop Trump before he wins the nomination, here are three ways the 2016 primaries will change politics.

1. Politicians will be emboldened to trust their instincts. Every politician is surrounded by a team of people — staffers, pollsters, PR consultants — whose job it is to keep their boss from taking risks. Each of these industries has a standard playbook, and Trump has thrown these playbooks out the window and still kept winning. This is going to make a decisive marginal difference in a thousand little instances when politicians need to choose between doing what their handlers tell them and going with their instincts.

2. Immigration is on the table. No need to plumb the depths of the American psyche to find an explanation for the Trump phenomenon. Skeptics of illegal immigration have been completely neglected by both major parties, and this left Trump an open path. Now that the intensity of public feeling against amnesty is clear, politicians will try to replicate Trump’s maverick success by taking up the banner of immigration enforcement.

3. Celebrity candidates are in. Commentators assumed Trump’s celebrity status would eventually limit his appeal. Once the novelty wore off, no one would take his candidacy seriously, they said — and they have been proven wrong. Now that Trump has shown how successful celebrity candidates can be, not just at the state level but nationally, look for both parties to start combing Hollywood for the politicians of the future.