Well, if the unhinged behavior of the Trumplings at the GOP convention this week hasn’t convinced you that the death of the republic is nigh, then you’re more of an optimist than me.

That, or you haven’t been paying attention.

I’ve been pretty much convinced the republic was dying from the day Barack Obama, a lazy, shiftless, junior senator from Illinois was elected, all because he could string a couple of words together in a sentence.

That belief was solidified when Trump was allowed to rise above a field of some of the strongest conservative minds at our disposal in many years.

You can’t run a nation on a combination of “gimme, gimme” and stupid.

We are on our way to a one-party system because the Democrats have better learned how to harness idiocy into a winning strategy. They’ve had more practice.

It seems I’m not the only one sounding Taps for the nation, or the Republican party. Back in April, former President George W. Bush lamented that very thing.

Former President George W. Bush fretted to a group of former aides and advisers in April that he was worried he could be the “last Republican president.”

The 43rd president’s remark, at a gathering in Dallas of his administration’s staffers, reflected a dim view of the party’s prospects at a time when the primary contest was realistically down to Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

“I’m worried that I will be the last Republican president,” Bush told a clutch of former aides and advisers.

He may very well be, as Trump makes Hillary Clinton, possibly the most unelectable candidate the Democrats could offer up, seem oddly electable.

Republican voters of principle are ripping up their voter registration cards and are moving towards the door, seeking a party that better reflects their values, since the GOP has become the Trump party, according to Trump’s campaign manager and alleged Russian mob fixer, Paul Manafort.

Say what you will about George W. Bush, but he sees the writing on the wall. That may be why he has refused to be part of Trump’s ego-fest in Cleveland. He was a flawed, but principled president, and the last time we saw any real class or respect for the office in Washington.

And truthfully, I can’t even say I hope he’s wrong, because if Trump is the new face of the GOP, Republicans don’t deserve to be in the White House again.