The Illusion That Political Parties Represent Their Members

I mentioned this in another thread, but this is a very good synopsis of what is in place within the Republican Party that could deny the presidential nomination to anyone not in favor with the GOP elite. I'm sure something similar exists within the Democrat Party as well, so I don't want to imply that this sort of corruption is unique to the Republican Party. It's the smoke-filled room again.

This article reviews what occurred in 2012, as well as discusses how this can be used to deny the nomination to someone like Trump even if he wins the majority of delegates in 2016.

In 2012, Maine elected (by caucus, as Maine is a caucus state) twenty delegates to the Republican Convention. All twenty of them were Ron Paul delegates. Before the Convention, but after the delegates had arrived in Atlanta, the Republican National Committee met and made some changes to the rules, then they decided to selectively make these changes retroactive to apply to the 2012 Convention.

A few members of the Republican National Committee, none of whom were from Maine, replaced ten of the elected Maine delegates with scabs who were willing to cast their nomination vote for Mitt Romney. Since the Maine Republican Party didn't vote the way the RNC wanted them to, they replaced Maine's delegates with those who would vote the way they wanted them to. As a result, a large percentage of Maine's Republicans, including those serving its two elected members to the RNC and a large percentage of its state committee people, resigned and un-enrolled from the Republican Party. Similar underhanded moves occurred in other states, which is what gave us another four years of Barack Obama.

If you are a Republican, I strongly encourage you to read this article, as this is involved the dirty, backroom deals that they don't generally talk about.

 

By the way, here's a video of this rule being enacted. They called for a voice vote, which was clearly no, or at least close. But, and this is the disgustingly amazing thing, someone was filming from behind John Boehner as he supposedly determined the result of the vote, and you can clearly see that the results were on the teleprompter. Can it be any clearer that the results were predetermined?

 

If you were under the impression that the media gave, that the 2012 Republican National Convention went without a hitch, here's some video. Rachel Maddow reported on it, and suggested that there would be more coverage of it, then she never mentioned it again. Nor did any of the media, as far as I am aware. Yet, after half of Maine's elected delegates were replaced with unelected scabs who were willing to nominate Mitt Romney, the Texas delegation led a walk-out, which included delegates from several states, even some who were not Ron Paul delegates. They circled the convention floor twice, chanting, then marches around a six-block area. The media was certainly there, but none of it was aired on the national networks. Here's some video.

 

Nearly all of these people are friends of mine, so I was very much involved with it, although I was not a national delegate. The upsetting thing is how few people are even aware of what happened there, and particularly those who are, but didn't care because they weren't supporters of Ron Paul. Outcome based standards are no standards at all, and wrong is wrong even when I might benefit from it.

I don't know how steeped Donald Trump is in the mechanisms of the party, but I would guess that he is aware of what happened in 2012. One difference between 2012 and 2016 is that Donald Trump has a much larger support base than Ron Paul did, and he is much better at getting his message across. If they did it again in 2016, it would destroy the Republican Party, I think.

That doesn't mean that I necessarily believe that they would rule it out, as I am very serious when I say that both major political parties and the mainstream media (including Fox) are controlled by the same global corporate interests, and they would rather the Republican Party be a minority party for decades than allow someone to be elected to the presidency whom they cannot own. Several of the Republican elite have outright stated that they would throw their support behind Hillary Clinton, who personifies none of the ideals the Republican Party pretends to stand for.

There are Progressive republicans and there are Progress democrats, and these are the ones who hold the leadership positions in both parties. They are progressives before they are republicans or democrats, and it is the progressive agenda that they are fighting for. Oh, I am sure that Progressive republicans would prefer that their guy win over the Progressive democrat, but they won't tolerate a candidate whom they cannot own.

Trump is a flawed candidate in many ways, but he does seem to be the only one who they don't own, and I can't imagine him being cheated out of the nomination quietly.

 

It may have to do with the fact that CPAC invited several of his opponents to speak to them a few months ago, but did not invite Trump. They are inviting him now only because he is the frontrunner, but it is clear that they have no love for him.

 

Yes. Under the rules that the RNC established in 2012, Reagan could not have been nominated. I don't believe that Reagan was one of them either, but nearly everyone surrounding him during his two terms in office were members of the Council on Foreign Relations. So, while they didn't own him, they owned everyone he turned to for advice and everyone he needed to get anything done. This is, no doubt, why Reagan didn't accomplish the things he had promised to accomplish, such as reducing the size of government. Even the Department of Education, which he was going to dismantle, got bigger and more powerful under his watch.

 

Unless he can see past it. Either way, it's better than owning the president in advance, which would be the case with any of those who require substantial funding in order to mount a successful campaign.

 

I don't see him as the man who is going to lead us back to being the constitutional republic our nation was meant to be, but I do see him as someone with the potential to keep things from getting worse, enforcing our immigration laws, and bringing about improvements in our economy. I see him as someone who will put the interests of the country first in any international negotiations rather than what we've seen in recent years, when our own government is negotiating against our interests. Trump is a competitor, so I don't see him working toward a one-world government.

I also expect that he will be authoritarian, which is what we need in order to undo some of the harm that has been done in recent years. In other words, laws that were enacted by executive order should be done away with by executive order rather than waiting for congress to repeal them one by one. While congressional Democrats seem never to oppose anything that a Democrat president wants to do, Republicans frequently oppose their own Administration, so I trust that the legislative branch will do a better job of acting as checks and balances to any overreaches in authority that Trump might attempt, particularly since there are plenty of Republicans who are not exactly in love with Trump.

What I am hoping for in Trump is that our country will still be alive in four or eight years, and that it will be on better standing economically. If we are to return to constitutional principles, I don't expect that to be something that Trump will do necessarily, but perhaps the next administration or, more likely, a renewed congress might be able to accomplish that.