Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/16/2016 09:37 -0400
Two days ago, courtesy of Bloomberg, we outlined how the (extremely perturbed and after Tuesday completely decimated) GOP establishment would go about stealing the Republican nomination from Donald Trump.
“Although everyone now jokes about just how unstoppable the Trump ‘juggernaut’ has become, the establishment isn’t called ‘the establishment,’ for nothing,” we said. “Trump may have proven remarkably adept at whipping certain sectors of the electorate into a veritable frenzy, but he himself will tell you that he’s no politician.” The bottom line: he may be a wily, braggadocious, billionaire but he doesn’t know all of the tricks of the political trade. That could – and likely does – mean that Republicans are already working behind the scenes to figure out how to rob him at the last minute.
There’s all sorts of ways for crafty, career politicians to rig the delegates and use procedural maneuvers at the convention to undercut Trump and you can read the full account here, but suffice to say, a Trump nomination is far from a sure thing and the more he attacks the establishment the more willing they’ll be to use any means at their disposal to stop him.
But Trump has a …er… trump card.
He has an army (and that’s probably a more accurate characterization than any at this point) of supporters that would literally take to the streets if they feel as though the popular will has been subverted by the very same establishment politics that compelled them to vote for Trump in the first place. As Ted Cruz put it in Maine (although he was probably talking about himself, not Trump), “If the Washington deal-makers try to steal the nomination from the people, I think it would be a disaster. It would cause a revolt.”
Trump agrees.
Asked by CNN what would happen if he can’t muster the 1,237 delegates he needs to lock up the nomination and ends up getting robbed at the convention in Cleveland, Trump said this:
“I think you’d have riots.”
“[I’m] representing many millions of people. If you disenfranchise those people, and you say, ‘I’m sorry, you’re 100 votes short’ … I think you’d have problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen.”
Yes, “bad things.” And if you’ve seen a Trump rally lately, you know just what he’s talking about.
Of course irrespective of whether you believe Trump incites violence among supporters he knows are already riled up, he’s unquestionably correct to say that no cadre of politicians commiserating in a smoke-filled backroom should be allowed to subvert the will of the electorate.
But this is deeper than that for the GOP. This isn’t about preserving democracy. This is about making one last stand to preserve the Party itself.
That is, it’s an existential crisis. If the Republican brand has already been deeply wounded by Trump’s success, it will die altogether with a Trump nomination.
And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about in Washington: survival. Not democracy.
And that simple fact, combined with the fact that after last night, Trump has 621 delegates, is why we fear “bad things” may be more likely to happen than not in the months ahead.
Yep…The Ellen Jamesians are pissed off and they want blood !
Trump should not threaten to incite anyone to violence. It plays into the hands of the establishment that he is not to be trusted. As Martin Armstrong said, assassination would not be out of the question, especially if Trump went against the Fed, like JFK did.
It appears to me that the GOPe must be fully overthrown, by a full public union of Trump & Cruz, or the GOP must be destroyed, and the country ceded to Democrat control.
Trump is sort of a last chance shot for people who have had their voices disenfranchised from the mainstream political system for so long.
Now the finally see a chance to be represented again in something other than lip service.
You take that away by manipulative and dishonest means and you very likely will see trouble, although maybe not rioting in the streets. Historically it’s the leftists who take to the streets with violence not those on the other side of the aisle.
But trouble, even violent trouble, comes in many ways and forms, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to some of them put to practice in the event of an obvious Establishment coup against the voters.
There will be blood in the streets!
The “blood in the streets” seems to be the result of paid
protesters, rioters, and basic thugs just looking for some “action.”
Let us not forget the “agent provocateurs.”
Indicative of the “establishment” is that while we are in primary
season, there are warnings about assassinations. Vote fraud and
elections manipulations, and “rule changes.”
I didn’t hear Trump’s remarks re violence “by the people denied”
and such remarks may be imprudent. Nonetheless, the only
violence we have seen has been financed/orchestrated by the
groups wanting to retain power. Dem or Rep, they want to hold
on to their fiefdoms.
I say there will not be violence from the conservative/libertarian
peoples. We only want to be left alone to live our lives apart
from the phony jet set types. Let them burn in hell.
Trump will not be the next president. Okay already. However,
this games has shown (to whomever is looking) that the entire
system is occupied by liars, frauds and thieves.
I am not too smart. I am hopeful for insight from others.
These “disenfranchised” voters are being played like a fiddle. Anyone half awake, and truly disenfranchised would of written off the republican party long ago.
Anyone that punches an R on a ballot is still very soundly asleep, and I care less who the candidate is.
It might bring an older and more vital meaning to the term “partisan sniping”.
Greetings,
I just think this is Trump’s way of letting the establishment know that he will not go quietly into the night. Right now the PTB are having at him with agent provocateurs – paid thugs. Those paid thugs will vanish when the Molotov cocktails and baseball bats come out as those that find that the election is being stolen will not play nice afterwords. At this point, Trump may as well go all in and fight fire with fire.
bah,
“they” used as a reference to the deep state, will do what they did in 2000, when Gore won the popular vote, and probably the election, but they used the courts to settle the election.
we were introduced to new words like “hanging chads”
Since there really is no difference between repukes and democraps, all these politicians would gladly switch sides to ensure one of their own wins.
Ultimately, we have no say in how we are ruled, this election is just another distraction.
They have more dirt on hildabeast then they can ever manufacture on Trump, and even if they exposed some sordid details of Trumps past, his supporters would not flinch.
The deep state needs someone who is completely controllable, and the Donald does not fit the bill.
Even if he did win, they would take him into a secure room, tell him that if he acts without consulting them, they will kill his family first, and then destroy his reputation and steal his money using the courts, so, like I say, we have no choices, this is just bread and circus for the masses.
Political parties are modern day slave/death cults, if you vote for one you vote to have someone put a gun to your head and tell you what to do, or else, and or else is fine to the cultist.
And not just you, but everyone else is included in that violent circle of death and pain, whether they want to be there or not.
Let the republican party burn to the ground.
@Suzanna… I understand what you mean. I have always said (this elections cycle) that I learned how corrupt it all was in 2008 when I played the game to see how it was played. Having witnessed the rigging up close and personal, I liked Trump’s assault on TPTB because he didn’t have to play by their rules. However, they have managed to force him back into their playground and they will not let anyone have a voice but themselves.
Now, your comment about conservatives not rioting is correct to a point. Because your other comment about them just leaving conservatives the hell alone is also true. Don’t come here asshole… A conservative probably won’t riot on your street, but a conservative will blow your ass to hell on his property.
“Yep…The Ellen Jamesians are pissed off and they want blood !”
Yes, I hear them crying….”ucking igs”. 😉
“I am not too smart.”
You’re plenty smart. Go with your instincts.
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Why the Republicans face a contested convention
Geoff Dyer in Washington
The Republican establishment is terrified of Donald Trump and is desperately casting around for ways to stop him becoming the party’s presidential candidate. Mr Trump won Florida, Illinois and North Carolina on Super Tuesday 2, knocking out rival Marco Rubio, the one-time establishment favourite, from the contest.
But the property mogul lost Ohio, one of the biggest prizes in the primary race, making it less certain he will secure the majority of delegates he needs to lock down the nomination. That means that the establishment’s last hope might be an effort to block him at the Republican convention in July in Cleveland.
What is a contested convention?
During the primaries, the candidates are assigned delegates based on their performance (although each state has its own rules for how those delegates are allocated). If no candidate reaches the magic number of 1,237 delegates on the first vote in Cleveland, then the convention gets to decide the candidate. From the second vote onwards, delegates are free to switch their allegiance. They keep voting until someone has a majority. In 1924, the Democrats took 103 ballots to choose their candidate.
How rare are they?
They are mostly the stuff of political-geek fantasy. In 1976, Gerald Ford only secured a majority of Republican delegates just before the first floor vote. But the last conventions to go beyond a first ballot were in 1952 for the Democrats, when Adlai Stevenson won on the third ballot, and 1948 for the Republicans when Thomas Dewey also won on the third ballot. One reason the primary system was expanded in the 1970s was to reduce the chances of a contested convention — so that voters rather than party insiders would ultimately select the nominee.
How likely is it to happen this time?
With 58 per cent of delegates now assigned in the primary contest, there seems little doubt Mr Trump will arrive in Cleveland as the strongest candidate. He has 621 delegates and his nearest rival Ted Cruz has 395. Mr Cruz would have to win 70 per cent of all remaining delegates. John Kasich, the Ohio governor who won his home state in his only victory so far, has a mere 138 and cannot feasibly catch Mr Trump.
But it is conceivable the New York billionaire could still fall short of the magic number of 1,237. Only six of the remaining 21 contests are winner-takes-all, although they include Arizona and New Jersey where support for Mr Trump is strong.
If he gets to Cleveland only 20 or 30 delegates short, he would likely pick up the necessary votes quite easily. But if he is 200 away from the target, he will face a convention battle. The bottom line is that the race has already become as much about delegate arithmetic as it is about winning states.
More video
How could Trump be defeated at the convention?
Preventing Mr Trump from reaching 1,237 delegates is only the first part of the battle. Then party leaders would need to persuade a majority of delegates to swing behind a different candidate. Mr Cruz will almost certainly be in second place. but he is also distrusted by much of the party’s establishment. There has been speculation about a new candidate being put forward at the convention after the first ballot, such as 2012 nominee Mitt Romney or House speaker Paul Ryan, but both would lack legitimacy. No one quite knows how a contested convention would work in an era when delegates will be carrying iPhones, not cigars.
How would Trump react?
The biggest issue for party leaders is not the maths, of course, but the politics. If they somehow engineered to take the nomination away from Mr Trump at the convention, it could tear the party apart. Mr Trump would seek his revenge — perhaps by launching a third-party run or announcing a boycott in November. His supporters would not quickly forgive the establishment.
They would claim that a Republican election campaign marked by a grass roots insurgency ended with an elite stitch-up. In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam war, the Democrats chose Hubert Humphrey as their candidate, even though he had not competed in any of the 14 primaries that year — he won delegates at caucuses which were dominated by local party leaders. Outside the hall in Chicago, there was a riot as police fought with antiwar protesters. More than any other event, the 1968 Democratic convention convinced party leaders of the dangers of using backroom deals to choose a candidate.
Rule GOP Establishment Wrote to Block Ron Paul Now Prevents Them from Blocking Trump
Hogan Gidley, who served as national communications director for Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign, appeared on Wednesday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon to discuss a crucial aspect of the Republican primary: the previously obscure, but increasingly notorious, Rule 40.
Technically, most of the analysts citing Rule 40 are referring to the current version of Rule 40(b), which sets a certain minimum threshold for candidates at the Republican National Convention. According to this rule, candidates must arrive at the convention with a majority of the delegates from eight states or territories, or else they are disqualified from the first round. In most elections, this is a mere formality because the clear winner of the nomination is well-known before the convention begins, making the convention an extended infomercial for the party and its nominee.
Of course, there is good reason to suspect the Republican convention will be rather more exciting this year. Gidley noted there is apprehension among front-runner Donald Trump’s supporters that the GOP Establishment will use some “shenanigans” to “steal” the nomination from him at the convention. Among those shenanigans could be changing Rule 40 to bring candidates who don’t meet the established minimum threshold into the game.
There are two ghosts from the 2012 election haunting the Shakespearean drama of the 2016 primary, and Gidley invoked them both in a single breath: Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.
“This is actually called the ‘Ron Paul Rule.’ The Romney people put this in place,” Gidley explained. “The Establishment hurt Ron Paul, but I think this Establishment rule will actually help Donald Trump.”
Gidley noted there is no way for one of the last three remaining candidates, Governor John Kasich of Ohio, to win the necessary majority of delegates from eight states. Texas Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) currently stands at seven.
He further asserted that, contrary to much speculation from pundits, Rule 40(b) technically blocks disqualified candidates from participating in any of the subsequent ballots, which scuttles the notion of denying Trump victory in an initial vote where only he and Cruz are qualified candidates, and then parachuting some other Establishment-preferred candidate into the convention hall to seize the nomination, possibly someone who didn’t even run in the 2016 primary at all.
(Cruz is arguably even less acceptable to the Establishment of his own party than Trump — a point that will be made by many an anguished Hamlet delivering monologues over the skull of Marco Yorick in the weeks ahead, to continue that Shakespeare metaphor.)
Rule 40 “was an effort to stop the Ron Paul faction from gaining traction at the convention,” Gidley recalled. “And now we see the fruits of that rule, which was designed to stop Ron Paul, could effectively stop the Establishment.”
“The second part of the rule is, you can’t even count votes for anybody else who doesn’t meet that threshold,” he pointed out. “So people can try to submit votes for other people — like Kasich, or like Rubio, or like Romney — but if you haven’t won a majority of the delegates in eight states, you can’t be on any ballot, at any time. First, second, third, fourth, fifth — it doesn’t matter.”
It has been suggested that the Rules Committee will simply change Rule 40 to arrange whatever outcome is necessary to block Trump, but Gidley was skeptical of this idea. Normally, a presumptive candidate who has reached the “magic number” of bound delegates needed to secure the nomination can control the rules. If Trump is held below that 1,237-delegate threshold this year, the Rules Committee could theoretically rewrite the rules to hurt him, but Gidley anticipated sheer chaos if such tactics were employed.
“If you think people are mad now … it’s gonna be a political jihad,” he warned.
If the GOP cock blocks Trump, the ensuing riots would be like the Munich Beer Hall Putsch of November 9, 1923.
Now that tRump has said it, bad things *might* happen. Had he not said it the sheople would have grumbled a bit and then went right back to their iCrap and Circuses with barely a whimper.
Maybe tRump knows he’s going to get fucked (come to Jesus meeting with TPTB?) and he’s priming the pump here?
It certainly is entertaining!
So while flipping back in forth between the talking head shows last night watching the election results I stumbled on a conversation on the Rachael Maddow show that was interesting in spite of Ms. Maddows “my shit doesn’t stink smugness’. What they were saying was that the Republican Party can change their rules, add new rules, or even make shit up on the fly to insure they ultimately get the results they want in any given year. Basically it is their club and they can let you in, our not. Now granted it is not as easy as it sounds, due to the consequences and ripple effect that may be a result, but none the less it can be done. The Rule 40 example in Admins post above is a classic case of the Repub’s we don’t like where this is going so we are going to make up some new rules to keep Mr. Paul and his posse outside the convention. The panel on the show all seemed to think that was a good idea and the mechanics were working out the details as they spoke. This shit is mind numbing.
The other thing I thought was interesting was the discussion about what happens to Rubio’s delegates? Who gets them? Ms. Maddow suggested that Mr. Trump, being a bonafide moral midget, would somehow be flying all of these people down to his mansion in Florida and have them walk in the front door and then out the back door with a suitcase full of cash to insure they cast their votes for him. She felt that this might somehow be illegal but the experts on the panel, while dismissing any concurrence with Ms. Maddow’s assessment, agreed that in fact anything pretty much goes. So if that is true then that scenario cuts both ways. I’m thinking the establishment has more ways to get Joe American delegate to see things their way than the Donald does.
Lot’s of monkey business coming down the pike for sure.
Trump must fire every Obama staff member eliminate all executive orders,REALLY prosecute Hillary
Predictions-Barack Obama will attempt to usher in a New World Order by oppression and indoctrination, followed by tyranny and a complete takeover of the nation. Not only that, but many believe Obama will institute martial law to cancel the elections and stay in power, which would be unprecedented
Who has the greater ego, The Donald or the Kanye? Trump is leading Murika by the nose. All he has to do to hypnotize voters is to make dire predictions and broad statements while promising to somehow make Murika great again.
Trump’s next pronouncement will be that there will be blood in the streets if he is not elected president. Just yesterday he was announcing his long-shot candidacy. Today he is the indispensable man.
Stucky posted an article on bullshit and nowhere in it does it mention saviors with a political bent. Murikans scoff at holy water and chicken soup but as soon as a reality TV star decides to run for president, they anoint him as the country’s new-found redeemer, never mind the last 40 fuckers.
Fuck fucking Harry Reid denouncing Trump as anti-immigrant, I wonder if he didn’t bite his forked tongue?