Lest you had any remaining doubt as to whether the Republican party remained an entity distinct unto itself, an organization not fully subsumed into and under the control of Donald Trump, rid yourself of it. At this point, they need to toss out the name “Republican” and – for accuracy’s sake – call themselves “Trumplicans.”
According to Politico, in response to possible viable primary challenges, the Republican party in four states are expected to cancel voting, aka “primaries,” in nominating the Republican 2020 candidate. Kansas, South Carolina, Nevada and Arizona are in the process of finalizing the decision this week. More may come later.
The moves are the latest illustration of Trump’s takeover of the entire Republican Party apparatus. They underscore the extent to which his allies are determined to snuff out any potential nuisance en route to his renomination — or even to deny Republican critics a platform to embarrass him.
Okay, I might be on board with that. For the safety of the nation, we sure do not want Trump “embarrassed.” We presume he has the nuclear codes, and he is quick to name enemies. Perhaps Republicans seek to preserve “the state of the union,” a state without mushroom clouds.
Nah.
Trump doe not like “elections.” He IS the “Chosen One” to rule the United States, ask him. Voting is for p*ssies.
“Trump and his allies and the Republican National Committee are doing whatever they can do to eliminate primaries in certain states and make it very difficult for primary challengers to get on the ballot in a number of states,” said former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who recently launched his primary campaign against the president. “It’s wrong, the RNC should be ashamed of itself, and I think it does show that Trump is afraid of a serious primary challenge because he knows his support is very soft.”
Joe Walsh is not a smart man, nor a decent one. But, the blind squirrel is right in noting that the entire reason to cancel these primaries is to avoid highlighting the fact that Trump’s support is, indeed, soft as his stomach, and – fittingly, just as white.
However, Walsh is being ridiculous in noting that the Republican party “should be ashamed of itself.” Had the Republican party been capable of shame, it wouldn’t have nominated and elected Trump in the first place.
The money shot:
The cancellations stem in part from months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the Trump campaign. Aides have worked to ensure total control of the party machinery, installing staunch loyalists at state parties while eliminating potential detractors. The aim, Trump officials have long said, is to smooth the path to the president’s renomination and ensure he doesn’t face the kind of internal opposition that hampered former President George H.W. Bush in his failed 1992 reelection campaign.
Such an important paragraph, stuffed with words critical to understanding the entire Trump dynamic.
“Total control,” something Trump has aspired to in everything he’s ever done, but something our framers sought to withhold from any one person (though not in party machinery).
Installing “staunch loyalists,” the attribute Trump values more than any other in the people that work in and around him. Have we ever had a president more obsessed with “loyalty’? Great presidents rely upon their abilities and actions to earn support. Trump demands “loyalty” precisely because he intends to act in ways impossible to support.
And “behind the scenes maneuvering,” describes Trump’s entire modus operandi, whether it involves creating twenty LLCs to purchase a business interest, keeping his taxes and financial records from the public, or claiming executive privilege at every turn, the “truth” will always be found “behind the scenes.”
It should be noted that states have cancelled primaries before when a sitting president had the party’s presumed nomination. Several states canceled primaries for the 2012 Democratic nomination. However, in those instances, the lack of challengers caused the cancellations. Now, however, there are several relatively strong challengers considering a primary run against Trump, and the states are acting far ahead of time to cut them off prior to gaining traction.
Additionally, the Obama administration (without a primary challenge) did not fearfully work behind the scenes to shut down Democratic primaries.
Let this be a lesson to all of us. The reason that Trump values loyalty above all else is rooted in his need to silence and disempower all opposition. He is a dictator at heart, a tyrant in his head. Never forget that.
Forget the Republican party. The Trumplicans have fully taken over. There doesn’t exist a sliver of daylight between the Republican party and the Trump campaign.
****
Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected], and Follow me on Twitter: @MiciakZoom
He is desperate to avoid at all costs, a matching orange jumpsuit.
Am I wrong in interpreting this as possibly a good thing for us? It seems to me that going all in for trump is a mistake for them. Is there polling telling them trump is a sure thing? Is it just his base they are afraid of?
To answer your questions in order, Cmae:
Yes, I see it as a good thing on two fronts: pissing off yet more exiles of the GOP AND failing to prep for a non-Hillary campaign.
No, I doubt such polling exists outside of made-up stats that keep Mr. Tangerine Man from nuking South Dakota.
Yes, they are very much afraid of his base. Not only are they the only people left in the party who can call themselves Republicans without qualifiers but many of them are armed. Need I go on?
Dear gods but he just made another serious mistake. See, primaries can also serve as a shakedown cruise for a campaign…finetune staff, iron out your campaign message, give your candidate some practice rounds before the main event. But noooooo, Trump wants to just get on with it and skip possible humiliations. It’s a great way to get your glass jaw broken in the first round.
Akso, how many Republicans (NOT Trumplicans) did he just piss off with that move? How many of them are staying home? The cult alone won’t pull it off.
I’m hoping that the voters who are just learning about this will get mad enough to scare the party apparatchiks into changing their minds.
I suspect that nothing short of pitchforks and torches at the castle gates will do it, though.
Since this is Trumpworld, P J, expecting them to stick to a decision is foolhardy. They’ll try to have it both ways as per usual.
It’s like the trumpites are hypnotized, drunk, in a fog, hurling themselves, our country and in fact our precious ecosystem into the abyss.
As in alcoholism, the devastation is never limited to the alcoholic.
Another well-learned lesson from his heart-throb, Putin.
Is their next move to jail drumph’s challengers?
Oh, I think he’ll threaten it but that’s as far as it’ll go. And even THAT might be enough for those challengers to say, “Screw it…until further notice, we are temporary Democrats!” to their followers. That should purge the last dregs of the rational Republicans from the GOP ranks, leaving him just his cult and continuing criminal enterprise.
The Night of the Long Knives Trump style……
……first eliminate all dissension and challengers within the party.
THAT is a good one that I’ll remember. I suppose we can hope that the analogy ends there.
Personally, I’m surprised there’s anybody left in there to do the dissenting. I was under the impression that those folks had long since fled the scene.
There is no way trump can avoid humiliation. Everyday with every decision he covers himself with humiliation. This decision by the RNC shows that he is a pathetic loser and they know it. Could the other republican candidates run as independents and would it help us?
I wrote a column on Justin Amash, a congressman who came out in favor of impeaching Trump, which led him to quit or be kicked out of the Republican party (depending on who you believe). He is considering running on the Libertarian ticket, which would put him in the general election as a third party.
We had a couple libertarian commenters here (somewhat surprising) tell me I was wrong that most libertarian votes would come from Trump/Republicans, which I find impossible to believe. There is a reason he went from “Republican” to “libertarian” and that’s because their views align more closely.
Amash is the one who could really disrupt things bc he need not go through a primary fight, he’d be there drawing votes in the general. I mentioned in the column that I had little tolerance for libertarian belifefs and got called a “bigot” – which was a first for me. But, to each his own.
Anyway, I hope that answers your question. The most important service provided in a primary fight would be simply a voice from the right attacking Trump’s incompetence, making it look less like a political agenda from the left, more like the truth.
Peace, and thx for dropping by.
Of COURSE Libertarians are ex-Republicans. I have a friend who was a big poobah in the county GOP and either resigned or was fired in 2016 when he said he thinks Trump is racist and sexist (duh). He’s joined the Libertarian party here now, and has endorsed Amash.
“It should be noted that states have cancelled primaries before when a sitting president had the party’s presumed nomination. Several states canceled primaries for the 2012 Democratic nomination. However, in those instances, the lack of challengers caused the cancellations. Now, however, there are several relatively strong challengers considering a primary run against Trump, and the states are acting far ahead of time to cut them off prior to gaining traction.”
There are ZERO strong challengers to Trump on the Republican or the conservative side. And yes, there is a difference.
All Presidents look to consolidate their power within the party structure when seeking re-election. Obama’s opposition was roughly the same as Trump’s for a second term. Zero. That is indeed why primaries were canceled in 2012.
Hilary attempted the same thing in her last bid by trying to force out Sanders and actually accomplished it in principle by changing the rules in her wholly owned DNC. Bernie Bros will certainly attest to that.
Accusing Trump of being a tyrant for doing precisely what every President in history has done isn’t convincing.
I know you guys hate him. He isn’t one of my favorite people either. But, this type of argument leads to a rejection of anything anti Trump and is in actuality counter productive to your cause.
Talk to me again when you’ve pulled the blinders off.
Maybe, “Calm Down,” you might want to have a check-in with Reality before commenting.
Who EVER said there need to be STRONG challengers to Trump? Hell, in 2016, Trump didn’t qualify as a “STRONG” challenger for the nomination. He had a “name,” yes, but he was a complete and total neophyte to the political process and his NAME recognition led to most of his earliest GOP votes. But, let’s turn it around for a second: Why would the GOP–or Trump–care about preventing WEAK challengers? Is Trump THAT insecure that he couldn’t handle winning a GOP primary with “only” 85% or even 80% of the vote? Wake up! Just think about how many incumbent GOP Senators or Representatives must feel if THEY have to face “weak” challenges while Dumb Donald gets to slide by. State parties have historically (since most have to hold primaries for OTHER seats anyway) just listed the officeholder with no challenger at all on their ballots; I can’t imagine that the states looking to “cancel” their primaries are doing so for ALL seats. (If these states are looking to cancel ONLY their Presidential primaries, maybe they should reconsider their zeal in “selecting” their Party’s nominee as a more effective way of “saving money” for the Party. It’s also more cost-effective than the absurd caucus route that Nevada and Kansas take. Why do these states insist on caucuses ONLY for choosing the Presidential candidate? They use regular voting systems to elect their Governor, their Senators and Representatives–state and federal–and virtually every other office, not to mention the November election.)
As for 2012, Obama DIDN’T have any opposition. From DEMOCRATS. (He certainly had opposition from nutjob GOPers, but none from within his party.) We have, however, seen there most certainly IS opposition to Trump from OTHER REPUBLICANS. They may not stand a realistic chance of taking the nomination from Trump but shouldn’t the VOTERS make that choice rather than UNELECTED PARTY OFFICIALS? As to your “conclusion,” there’s a difference in how things are being done, not to mention FACTUALLY incorrect (you might recall that Gerald Ford faced opposition from Ronald Reagan in 1976, Jimmy Carter faced opposition from Ted Kennedy in 1980 and, as noted in the article, George H W Bush faced opposition mainly from Pat Buchanan in 1992). Within the last 40 years (and you can’t really count anything prior to that as our current primary system didn’t really come into full effect until 1976; even in 1972, only about a dozen states held Presidential primaries), the sitting President who had no opposition in their reelection bids did NOT interfere with the Party’s decisions. TRUMP’S OWN PEOPLE have been working to keep the Party from holding the Party primary.
As to Hillary and the 2016 primaries, the REAL reason for the DNC’s *seeming* support for her, well, once again that was because Hillary was the ONLY REAL DEMOCRAT–Bernie was, and still is, an INDEPENDENT who also wanted to let NON-DEMOCRATS participate in the DEMOCRATIC Party primary (and all the “Bernie Bros” just could not get that through their thick skulls). Bernie should not be running for the nomination this cycle either since he broke his promise that he would run AS A DEMOCRAT IN ALL FUTURE ELECTIONS. (After he made that promise and was “invited” to work with the DNC on “opening the Party,” he went and ran for re-election AS AN INDEPENDENT.) And Bernie’s OFFICIAL documentation–even that on his Senate website–highlights that “I” behind his name on ALL official press releases and material.
You have got to be kidding me. Seriously? First of all, Obama’s team didn’t engineer the cancellations, as reported here that Trump’s team is doing behind the scenes. Second of all, it is WELL known that William Weld and Mark Sanford are strongly considering a run, that’s not even counting Joe Walsh who IS running, but is not a serious person. Find me someone – anyone – who even talked about challenging Obama, and I’ll listen.
This is not something I made up, it is reported by none other than Bill Kristol, perhaps you’ve heard of him? Outraged that Trump’s team would engineer this – and it is Trump’s team doing this, pressuring the states.
If you want to talk about counter-productive, equating the competition that Obama had, or even Clinton had, versus what Trump might well have is invalid, to say the least.
Didn’t Bernie Sanders TALK about challenging Obama in 2012? He didn’t actually DO it. And I believe Weld is actually running too.
By the way, we have strong reason to despise the man, he is destroying our alliances, has run out every good person in his administration, and just this week proved himself so pathologically insane that he is using a sharpie on his own to “cheat” on his test. This is not a well man. Don’t take my word for it, ask James Mattis. So, it pains me to see someone who I respect so much work so hard to be “calm” about it when Rome is burning. I see Republican after Republican apologize for him in mesmerizing ways.
I am sorry if I seem upset, but the comparison to Obama is just bizarre. Obama’s team never asked for canceled primaries, the states did it bc NO ONE ran against him, and it was just redundant and a waste of money. The Republicans KNOW people are considering a run at Trump, and Trump’s team is acting ahead of time. They don’t want people calling him on his record.
Last time, I got the story from Bill Kristol, who was outraged. He is not in “our cause” – he is a Republican.
Bill Kristol has never been a Republican. He is, and always has been, a RINO. The man is a country club caricature of a conservative that has apologized for his supposed “side” from day one. He ran a respected conservative publication into the ground and he’s about to do the same to another.
James Mattis was about to be lionized by the liberal press and invited onto all the left leaning talk shows because they thought he was about to trash Trump. All of a sudden he wasn’t invited anymore. Why? Because excerpts from his upcoming book were heavily critical of the disastrous foreign policy of the Obama administration and the destruction of friendly alliances and propping up of our enemies (see Iran).
If you don’t think Obama’s people were working behind the scenes to squelch any thought of anyone primarying him, I don’t know what to tell you. If you think the states canceled primaries on their own, you are willfully ignoring the truth.
Again, there is no credible threat to Trump in a primary just as there was no credible threat to Obama.
As for primary opponents against Obama who at one time or another explored that opportunity, they included H. Clinton, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Michael Bloomberg (yes, that guy), Michael Capuano and Clarence B. Jones. None of them were credible and were all proactively snuffed out by Obama’s political machine.
Both Trump and Obama are politicians. Their endgame is the same concerning elections. Eliminate the competition before it gains momentum. Obama did it. Trump is doing it.
Not trying to change anyone’s mind, Calmdown, just adding my 2 cents here: regardless of one’s opinion of Obama, even if he and the DNCC actively discouraged primary challengers, Obama was not A DEMONSTRABLY INSANE TRAFFIC CONE. There is no moral or practical equivalence here between whatever the DNCC might’ve done in 2012 and the GOP’s suiciding on a dumpster fire of a presidency. Further, anyone who believes otherwise undoubtedly also believed there was no real distinction between HRC and trump., and voted accordingly. Thanks a bunch.
Just so you know, I was NeverTrump before it was a thing. I voted for neither. And was excoriated for it within my circle.
Now, we are reduced to a destructive far left fantasy or an administration that has put people back to work, is anti abortion, pro second amendment, is trying to control immigration (as opposed to open borders), put some teeth back into our foreign policy, has remarkably kept us out of another hot war, has produced energy independence without destroying the environment, restored the judiciary to some semblance of strict constructionism, etc…all conservative values.
Here’s the kicker. I don’t think Trump will be reelected, not because of his administrations conservative wins, but because he can’t control himself on twitter.
I’ll have a decision to make come election time. There are three options. Vote for all out socialism, don’t vote the Presidential line on the ballot or hold my nose and vote for the policies of this administration and not the man.
By the way, you are confusing “DEMONSTRABLY INSANE” with “NARCISSISTIC ASSHOLE”.
Yes, one can be sane and petty at the same time.