Doug Wead is a presidential historian who served as senior advisor to the Ron Paul presidential campaign in 2012.
Warning to the Trumpets. It ain’t over. It is just beginning.
Below are a list of tactics that Establishment Republicans may use to block the nomination of Donald Trump. Yes, I know. If they succeed they will not win the White House but many in the establishment will make just as much money under a Democrat insider as they will with a Republican insider. So they may not care.
All they may want to do is send the message to any future “outsider” candidate, “This is our party and you need our approval to participate. If you try to do this without us we will destroy you.”
These tactics were used in 2012 to keep Libertarian insurgents from winning delegates to the Republican National Convention. The fear was that Ron Paul would be able to place his name in nomination and give a speech about capital cronyism and how big corporations use the system to corrupt free enterprise. Donald Trump can learn from our experience.
What was at stake in 2012? Money. What’s at stake now? Money.
But why will low level party stalwarts who don’t get that money play along and do the bidding of the big party leaders?
To keep their positions as State, County or Precinct Chairmen. Power. Ego. Prestige. They want that all expenses paid trip to the Republican National Convention. Booze. Free corporate gifts. A box of Godiva chocolates left on their pillow in their room each night. They know that candidates like Trump come and go but the party infrastructure, financed by companies and their lobbyists, remain forever.
Here’s what the new Trump supporters can expect. (Carefully follow the links to stories below to see the actual videos and read the details of how these things happened in 2012.)
#1) Cruz, Rubio, Kasich and Romney will cooperate with each other to help block Trump outsiders at key County and State conventions. There is nothing wrong with this. Just don’t be taken by surprise. You may have most of the delegates at the local event and still lose to this combination. Make your own deals with Chairmen and other party officials before its too late.
#2) The RNC Rules Committee will likely change the rules back to a five state requirement needed to put a name in nomination at the Convention. This will make it easier to nominate Rubio, Cruz, Kasich and even Romney. Trump operatives should block this change and keep it at eight, which was originally designed to protect Romney, the expected incumbent.
#3) Make sure that you have your own people chosen as delegates to the convention. The insiders will fight you to the death over this, saying that it doesn’t matter, that you won the primary or the caucus and so the actual delegates are bound by law to vote for you anyway. (Not true.)
They will say that the governor and the senator and the old former chairman, who has been to every RNC since Eisenhower, should be able to represent their state. Be courteous and reasonable but you also need large numbers of your own reliable Trump supporters chosen as delegates.
Keep in mind, the only rules that bind the delegates are the rules of the party and those very delegates can change those rules.
What if there is a media hyped Trump scandal and the party votes to “unbind” the delegates on the first ballot? Then they can vote for whomever they wish.
What if Trump does not win on the first ballot and there is a second ballot? They will then vote their real choice and you will have lost all of those states you thought you had won in primaries.
#4) The place of the caucus that selects the actual delegates who go to the district or state convention may suddenly change without your knowledge. Linked by a telephone chain the insiders will meet without you. Your folks will show up at one hotel and the meeting will take place at another.
#5) The time of the meeting may suddenly change. Your people can show up and find that the building is locked and authorities will say you are too late to be allowed in to participate. This happened many times in 2012, with hundreds of screaming voters left outside.
#6) The chairman may say “Ayes have it,” even if they don’t. This happens at the precinct, county, district, state and even national level. What are you going to do about it? Sue? Meanwhile, their winning precinct delegation will go onto the State Convention as delegates representing your opponent.
You may appeal to the RNC for justice and they may support the cheaters because you don’t have enough of your own people as delegates serving on the Rules Committee.
#7) Off duty police may arrest and detain your newly elected Donald Trump GOP officers. Yep, that happened to us. Your people may be kept for hours in jail cells and those who protest may be arrested as well.
#8) Precinct, County, State leaders may charge a last minute tax. This may have happened in 2012 in Alaska. Voters who had not been tipped off reportedly could not vote without paying $10. Credit cards not accepted. This worked so well at excluding voters in Alaska that Romney operatives used it in King County, Washington. They also turned away young people who did not appear on their outdated voter registration lists.
#9) If the Caucus Chairman is replaced or does not like the outcome of the vote they may suddenly declare the process invalid. For example, they may say that the new chairman is a Trump partisan and thus it is now a Trump event and the GOP insurance for the event is invalid and thus the meeting is ended. See the video above.
#10) State Conventions will prepare ballots misspelling Trump and then later discount them in the voting for those pledged delegates.
#11) Fake ballots will be distributed listing establishment names as the official Trump delegates, confusing the voters. They may also try to split the Trump slate by nominating competing Trump delegates with real names of public figures.
#12) Counting the ballots at the various conventions will be an exhausting business with delays, postponements until the next day, seals broken on the voting boxes, and all kinds of chicanery.
#13) They may cancel the voting due to weather in a key precinct that is heavily Trump, throwing the State. Even though the weather turns out to be fine in the given precinct.
#14) At convention you may find hotel rooms cancelled.They may arrange for the bus bringing your delegates to the Rules Committee to get lost and changes to convention rules may happen in your absence.
#15) When you leave the RNC don’t think it’s over. A Ron Paul delegate was detained by TSA at the airport leaving Tampa when bullets were found in their packed luggage.
The idea is to make you so sick, so weary, so beaten down that you will never, ever, even dare challenge the establishment that runs the Republican Party again. Ever.
Here is the message. It doesn’t belong to you. As in the case of the Democratic Party, it belongs to the insiders, the rich and powerful who make money from a rigged economy that favors a few at the expense of the many. Donald Trump is too independent and too unpredictable for them.
You have been warned. Good luck.
Doug Wead first published this article on his personal blog, and it was republished here with his permission.
