Is the GOP Trump's party now?

A little more than a week before voters headed to the polls, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel said something Republicans will be debating for at least the next four years. "No matter what happens in this election," the PayPal co-founder said, "what Trump represents is not crazy and it's not going away."

Thiel, 49, is but one example of what an unusual election this has been. The gay Silicon Valley mogul was roundly criticized for supporting Donald Trump for president and speaking on his behalf at the Republican National Convention. He did it again at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., telling his Beltway audience why they were wrong about the campaign.

"It was both insane and somehow inevitable that D.C. insiders expected this election to be a rerun between the two political dynasties who led us through the two most gigantic financial bubbles of our time," Thiel said.

You might expect a high-profile supporter of the Republican candidate for president to offer such a negative appraisal of Bill Clinton's 1990s economic stewardship, especially since his wife Hillary is the Democratic nominee. But to launch a similar attack on George W. Bush, the last GOP president, while not mentioning Barack Obama even once?

As polarizing as the 2016 election was for the country as a whole — some pollsters asked respondents if they would rather see the Earth destroyed by a meteor than vote for either candidate, and a surprisingly high percentage chose this option — it has been an especially painful and divisive experience for the Republican Party.