• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, May 9, 2016

The scene within the Republican party is looking increasingly convoluted in the days following the Indiana primary. We have a presumptive GOP nominee who lacks the endorsement of his party’s majority leader in the House of Representatives and is publicly at odds with that same official’s legislative agenda.

Still, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan and GOP party chairman Reince Priebus are to meet with presumptive nominee Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, planning to iron out the deep creases appearing in the party’s national fabric.

Priebus went as far as to assure Republicans that he thinks Ryan is “going to get there.” Explaining that “in Paul Ryan’s case, he thought he has 30 more days” to feel at ease with a Trump nomination, adding, “Paul [was] just being honest with how he felt.”

This begs the question, what would 30 days do? Maybe Trump would assure Ryan privately that he’ll start espousing more traditional Republican policies going forward?

Ryan does assert that he wants to eventually be able to support Trump, protecting the slowly fading flame of a united party.

Other parts of the old Republican guard, however, do not sound as congenial.

The only two surviving Republican presidents, George H. W. and George W. Bush, will not attend the GOP convention. Nor will they endorse their party’s presumptive nominee. Mitt Romney has also rejected the notion of supporting Trump.

Former presidential candidate and U.S. Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham explained: “I’m not going to support somebody I don’t believe is a reliable Republican conservative.” Another Senator, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, piled on: “A third-party candidate is the only solution. This is America. If both choices stink, we reject them and go bigger.”

Beyond the difficulties the party’s elected officials are facing with Trump in the mix, the base is losing confidence in the party as a whole. According to a Pew Research poll from April, only 68% of Republicans have a positive view of their party, compared to 88% of Democrats, who hold such a view about theirs.

There are a few short months until the Cleveland convention, and Donald Trump is poised to be the GOP nominee. The question is: Will his party accept that and fall in line behind him?

Whether the Grand Old Party breaks apart or sews itself back together, one man dominates headlines. As NBC’s Chuck Todd said on "Meet the Press": “Donald Trump effectively tells GOP leaders: It’s my party, and you can cry if you want to.”