It’s official: Trump will be the nominee, and Pence is his VP
There are two pieces of election 2016 news today.
The first is that the NeverTrump movement is stillborn, which is no surprise whatsoever. Not with a bang but a whimper, it was crushed by the committee:
A long-shot, last-ditch attempt by a few Republican delegates to prevent Donald Trump from securing the GOP nomination failed by an overwhelming margin late Thursday night.
Some anti-Trump delegates on the Republican National Convention Rules Committee sought a strategy to unbind convention delegates, allowing them to vote their conscience against Trump even if they were bound to him by primary results. Delegates loyal to Trump and the Republican National Committee fought back by proposing a counter-measure to clarify that all delegates are bound to vote based on the primary results.
The votes came near the end of a marathon 14-hour session of the rules committee to set any changes ahead of next week’s convention to officially nominate Trump as the Republican presidential candidate. The first vote, on the pro-Trump measure to keep delegates bound, passed easily, 87 to 12.
At least a month or two ago (maybe earlier) it became clear that the official movement to block Trump was going nowhere. The reasons also seemed (and seem) clear: (1) there were not enough delegates who felt that way (2) they could not coalesce around a viable alternative. Also, in recent days Trump has seemed to be climbing in the polls to the point where he appears at least somewhat competitive with Hillary or potentially competitive with her.
I maintain that it was #2 that was the most important factor in both making the movement die in its official sense—among the delegates—and it was also the reason Trump was the winner of the primaries in the first place: Republicans could not unite around an alternative. There was no lack of alternatives, however; there were too many, but no one person could manage to gather enough of the divided party members (and crossover Democrats and Independents) to beat Trump. Trump is a symptom of a divided party, not a cause (although his candidacy has further divided the party in a time when it needs unity).
That’s why during the primaries I kept calling out in increasing desperation for a whole bunch of Trump’s opponents to drop out. It didn’t happen, and now we are left with this. I continue to think that any number of alternative candidates would have had a better chance of beating Hillary, but that is moot. I continue to understand why many private citizens will continue to be NeverTrump and write in various candidates, vote for Johnson, or not vote at all (I cannot condone voting for Hillary), although I’m not a NeverTrumper myself.
The second announcement is that Trump has chosen Mike Pence as his running mate. Within the last week or so, that had become widely expected, too, although until recently I (and many others) had thought Newt Gingrich would be the one. To me, Pence is a ho-hum choice but not a bad one at all. And given the limitations of the field—after all, whoever Trump picked had to be willing to hitch his or her wagon to Trump’s rather dubious star—Pence was probably one of the best possibilities:
Democratic and progressive groups, including Planned Parenthood’s political action organization, took aim at Pence’s opposition to abortion and other policies, while Republicans were largely supportive of the move, one of the most conciliatory overtures Trump has made to date.
Former Trump rival Marco Rubio tweeted out his approval, calling it a “great pick” and saying Pence is “rock solid.” Sen. Dan Coats, a fellow Republican from Indiana, also expressed enthusiasm. “Mike Pence is a great choice and will make an excellent vice president,” he tweeted.
Nate Silver certainly thinks it was a good pick for Trump—or rather, as he puts it, Pence “was Trump’s least worse choice”:
…[I]n Pence, Trump would basically be getting a “generic Republican”: a 57-year-old white man; the governor of a midsize, red-leaning state; someone with very conservative but otherwise conventionally Republican policy positions.
That’s probably a good thing, because a generic Republican at the top of the ticket would have a heck of a chance against Hillary Clinton, whose unpopularity would be record-breaking if not for Trump himself.
So there you have it.
The NeverTrump faction failed because no high-profile Republican stepped forward to offer himself/herself as the replacement. While I think dumping Trump would make a loss certain in November, if you are going to push NeverTrump forward, you need to walk the walk. I am looking at you, Mitt Romney.
Neo:
“The first is that the NeverTrump movement is stillborn”
Shortfall of activism in clearly an activist game preempted an otherwise realistic option.
Yet even now, if they can rise above all their track record and muster sufficient activism in time to compete for real vs the Democrat-front Left and Trump-front alt-Right (plus GOP) in the 2016 general election, a 3rd option is doable. If not to win the 2016 general election, at least to set up the necessary means to forestall social political obsolescence and build up to compete for real.
Yancey Ward:
“The NeverTrump faction failed because no high-profile Republican stepped forward to offer himself/herself as the replacement.”
That’s more buck-passing magical messiah rationalization for not competing. The necessary foundation piece has been the movement, before the man.
Lacking a sufficient competitive social activist movement, which has primarily required conservatives to collectively choose their principles and their country above their personal aversion to activism, the candidate is moot.
But apparently, conservatives value their personal aversion to activism above all else.
Perhaps the Republicans should make sure there’s a line for “Generic Republican” in their primaries next time around. Hell, the Democrats might benefit from the trick as well.
Choosing Pence to prove djt is actually a conservative disappoints me, I was hoping he would pick one of his registered democrat children.
Eric:
Since you’re apparently the expert on “activism”, why are you wasting time lecturing us and not out organizing the conservative movement to victory in November? Based on the outrageous amounts being paid to consultants who lead us to defeat every 4 years, you could be worth millions in a few months, and have the undying gratitude of approx 50% of the nation.
Don’t tell us – show us – how it’s done.
The suggestion that NeverTrump is dead is hubris. It doesn’t end with the official nomination. It goes all the way to election day. He’ll never get my vote (and he said he didn’t need it anyway. Hubris)
#neverTrump
Eric, you have it completely ass-backwards. Effective political movements need a leader. NeverTrump had a lot of pundits and nothing else. I wouldn’t trust that group to change the oil in my car.
Bill,
Amen.
Yancy,
I would not trust trumpians to rake leaves in my yard come November. 😉
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cleveland-dazed-gop-marches-toward-000000623.html
This describes well what is happening.
Ultimately, to extend Yancy’s argument, there just is not enough prominent people who will stick their neck out to fill out an organized effort.
It is like the wait and see argument. Everyone waits for everyone else to make a move, but since all are doing so, nobody moves. Nobody wants to risk the possible wrath by being a first mover, so they take the “safe” road of “reluctantly” supporting Trump.
And this is where that thinking and behavior leads…
http://theresurgent.com/yes-the-gop-would-support-hitler-against-hillary/
It is rather hard not to think it wouldn’t, given everyone’s current reaction (including some of the comments I’ve read on this blog under various articles) and their paradigm blinder for a binary choice.
We all seem bemoan the “choices” before us, but those choices are a reflection of all of us collectively.
It doesn’t have to be that way – we don’t have to pick either Trump or Clinton. We can look past them.
It is up to each of us. Our individual vote for one or the other gives them our personal stamp of “acceptable” over any other alternative.
Are we waiting for everyone else to move, or are we going to look elsewhere because these two are unacceptable, and it is the right thing to do?
If it was Hitler, as the linked article provocatively suggests, would you finally look past the binary choice, or would you, as it concludes, be stuck in that binary choice, still awaiting someone else to stick their neck out?