I stopped paying attention to the Republican party eight years ago, after seeing the many sordid ways the party smothered the Ron Paul campaign (twice!), but the I've been drawn in again by various conspiracy theories concerning Trump as Cat's Paw for a the Clinton's. My working hypothesis is that Trump was going along with this for one reason or another, and got serious when he realised that it really could be done. He may have been quite surprised by the level of enthusiasm and support, aside from the weakness of the competition.
I've been considering attending the local Republican convention to at least (again) witness the Borg in action, but the in the meanwhile, I'm going to try to gather as many links as possible to provide a good background on the mechanics of GOP skullduggery.
Doug Wead, a former RP staffer, is on top of it.
Can the RNC still steal the nomination from Trump on the first ballot?
"That’s right. Every delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention is a completely free agent, free to vote for the candidate of their choice on every ballot at the convention in Cleveland in July. Every delegate is a Superdelegate!"
I think I will forgo the pleasure; if the delegates are not bound, there's not much advantage in electing any particular Slate. The founders warned us about "factions".
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil.” – John Adams
Not hard to imagine what they would think of today's Parties.
