Convention Chaos Would Have to Be Unprecedented to Dump Trump
A lot of folks have been trying to figure out how to avoid being ruled by the future Clinton/Warren communist regime. As an ex-member of the Republican Party for over two years now, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is little hope for that party to win, especially in light of recent events.
Donald Trump has claimed that one can predict bias due to ethnicity, which has got to be one of the most anti-American things we’ve heard a Republican candidate say, in spite of the Democrats who say these kinds of things and thrive on race-insults and division. And we may be overthinking this, but, if someone of Mexican heritage is automatically biased against a guy who builds a fabled wall between Mexico and the United States, then wouldn’t that mean that in his brain, Trump believes he will not get “fair” treatment from any Latino voter?
Ah, forget it, trying to make sense of this egomaniac is tiresome. While we are told to unite behind him despite his lack of conservative qualities—not to mention absence of common sense and abundance of shallowness—some of us dream of a way to change the nominee rather than infringe on our self-respect.
But there is a bigger wrinkle than Trump at play. The Republican Party in our sometimes romantic minds is not the Republican Party Trump plans to take over. It’s not as if he’s going to turn the GOP into a big government party; it already is one. He will uphold the status quo and reinforce the establishment. He heaps praise on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) because he has power. He heaps disdain on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) because he does not have power. If Trump’s the nominee, and if he wins the presidency, there will be zero attempt made by the Republican Party to adhere to the conservative principles on which it was founded. So, really, nothing will change in that respect.
Steve Deace has interviewed an RNC official who believes the rules are not set that delegates have to stick with the outcome of the state primaries on the first vote. That official, Curly Haugland, wrote a book titled “Unbound,” and he presses that all delegates can and should vote their consciences on every vote. Another convention expert said that though Haugland’s meticulous reading of the rules usually garners him a collective eye roll among the RNC members, he is correct in that the rules are unclear on binding. According to a book by convention expert John Yob, “Chaos: The Outsider’s Guide to a Contested Republican National Convention 2016,” Haugland’s years of being a rules geek are perhaps coming to a head as the anti-establishment fervor is at a fevered pitch, and he presides at the head of a North Dakota delegation who are all unbound.
Yob is a Michigan operative who now lives in the Virgin Islands and has contested the Republican Chair from St. Croix for control of the delegation. The U.S. Virgin Islands are special in that all nine delegates are unbound and chosen by very few voters, giving them quite a bit of relative power. In his book, Yob runs down every state delegation, how it’s elected, whether the delegates are bound or unbound free agents and other nerdy details. But no matter how much he discusses the rules and some history of conventions, the book stresses, at least to my reading, that the rules are unclear. In fact, a pretty clear takeaway from the book is that 2016 is ripe for a chaotic unprecedented convention, not just because Trump is running (his book was published before the presumed nominee was named), but because of the fractious lead up to this convention and the shifts taking place within the Republican Party.
If the elites of the Republican Party only understood that the anger that fueled the rise of Trump can be traced back to them in the first place, a lot of the divisiveness within the party would subside; but they believe they are still right, so it’s not going to end. Heck, Trump doesn’t even understand who or what the problem in Washington is. He just figures he can make better deals.
But it seems if you are hoping for a different nominee coming out of the convention, the chaos would have to be ten times anything that’s ever happened before, thus making it quite a farfetched dream. The revolt would have to be led by the delegates themselves. They would have to secretly coordinate across states, identifying SINOs (supporters in name only) of Trump, those not poisoned by the lies Trump told about the rest of the primary field.
But though the Yob book gives a pretty clear picture of how “anything can happen” at a convention, the truth is, unless several rules are changed, and other rules clarified, a coup is unlikely. Considering all the risky business with the number of first-time convention attendees and the capitulating nature of the Republican Party in general, we must figure Trump will come out of the convention as the nominee, with probably an establishment guy for vice president. Because in the end, the establishment needs to protect the status quo.
For those of us who believe Trump will lose to Hillary, it’s all bad news. (For more from the author of “Convention Chaos Would Have to Be Unprecedented to Dump Trump” please click HERE)
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