There are only two acceptable conclusions as far as Republican voters are concerned. If Donald Trump wins the nomination, it would be bad but at least the party won’t fracture. If Ted Cruz beats him fair and square, it’s the only alternative for Trump’s supporters that they will accept and not push for a breakup of the party. Every other scenario will destroy the Republican party. There seems to be a growing number of party insiders who haven’t gotten this memo.
Whether through a brokered convention, open convention, contested convention, or whatever type of convention loophole you concoct, the voters will no longer follow your lead. It doesn’t matter if it’s Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, or Peyton Manning. Any attempt to bypass the will of the voters will be met with the most complete rejection that the party has ever seen.
I understand their frustration. After all, Ronald Reagan was the last nominee to earn the spot through the will of the people rather than the manipulations of the Establishment and they were nearly destroyed as a result. They continued to fight Reagan into the middle of his first term before coming to grips with the fact that he wasn’t going to destroy the country as they expected. The same thing can be said about Ted Cruz, the candidate that they should be supporting if they really want to stop Donald Trump.
At this point, I don’t care whether they support Trump or Cruz. I’d assume if they accepted that those were the two choices that their ranks would split between the malleable but unpredictable Trump or the conservative but sane Cruz. That’s why they’re so reluctant. It kills the Karl Rove types in DC that someone other than they’re anointed loser is going to get the nomination, which is why they’re perpetuating the narrative that stealing the nomination at the convention is a good thing. It’s not. It will do more damage than nominating Trump. At least with a Trump nomination the party stays mostly together and he gets obliterated in the general election. Then, they can start over to rebuild the party. However, pushing it to the convention and trying to slip through a candidate that didn’t the votes will allow us to once and for all dissolve the notion that the Republican Establishment is worried about anyone’s interests other than their own.
The voters must be allowed to decide who our nominee is. If it’s stolen, the damage that will be done to the party and the country will be unfathomable. The donor class always wins. The last time they lost was 1980 with Reagan. Accept that it’s going to happen again and pick Cruz or Trump. Just don’t try to force another loser down our throats.
The post Dear Republican Establishment: Stop Looking for a Loophole and Pick a Side appeared first on Conservative Haven.
