Wait, it is this the moment when the anti-Clinton forces officially took leave of any semblance of reality?
Sadly, no. That was a long time ago. But it’s an excellent try.
Won’t happen. Any attempt to divide or change the ticket at this point is effectively conceding the election. They may as well just endorse Clinton.
As someone who has had to put up with Pence as governor for some time now I would say that he would suck at the job of PotUS… oh, wait, you meant voting prospects, right?
Yeah, I think many Republicans would find voting for Pence more palatable than voting for Trump but that is a very low bar to get over and the very definition of damning with faint praise.
Except there are no explicit provisions in the RNC rules that allow the party or anyone within the party to effectively depose the nominee and substitute themselves in their place, particularly without either a new convention or a RNC member vote. Doing all these things outside of the rules would be stopped pretty quickly with a lawsuit by either Trump or the DNC.
Since all of the state ballots would still have the combined Trump/Pence ticket printed it would not be possible to vote for Pence alone except as a write-in candidate at present. It seems very unlikely any large scale write-in campaign would be successful in even winning a handful of states let alone triple digit numbers given the very limited amount of time left and the amount of education and communication it would take to tell voters to write in Pence and ignore Pence’s name next to Trump on the printed ballot.
There is still a chance that Trump can win, Hillary is reliably good at shooting herself in the foot.
Even if Trump loses its not fatal to the party; they can recover in 4 or 8 years.
They get rid of him now, its gonna split the party like never before.
If (extremely long shot) they do lose Trump, at this stage it wouldn’t be about winning the Presidency. It would be about damage control for the down ticket races and the mid terms and 2020.
The quicker they distance themselves from Trump the sooner they can wash the shit stains off themselves.
Right now, one suspects the R’Pub leadership worst case scenario is Trump winning.
That was Sam Wang’s conclusion earlier as well. It’s become overwhelmingly obvious that the Trumptanic is going down. The Republican Rats are doing what rats always do with a sinking ship.
I’m just giddy that people like Ryan and Cruz were caught by surprise, having jumped aboard at the last minute.
There are no backsies and there is already an alternative Republican candidate on the ballot: Gary Johnson.
Trump is the Republican nominee and that’s the bed we made.
I just don’t see how Trump can win at this point, and I felt that way even before stumbling upon this gem. The real danger since the debate has been that Trump could still make this race close enough to contest the election, but even that possibility seems to be much lower since Friday.
We don’t agree on much but I kinda see where you’re goin here. If Trump gets dumped it’s not just a matter of Trump losing, it would be an admission of guilt by the republican party that they really are a party of circus animals – where’s the incentive to vote R then? Why not just vote Johnson? I think the down-ballot effect on Trump now is very real.
I’m no fan of the GOP (as a party) but Trump wasn’t the GOP’s fault. Or they share the blame with the electorate.
Yes, the GOP purposely brought the racists onboard way back with the Southern Strategy. But the architects of that are mostly dead now. They haven’t shaken them, nor have they really tried. And they can be faulted for both those things.
But “we the People” had a primary, which Trump won fair and square. The GOP did what it was ethically obligated to do, to support the candidate that had been elected by the voters.
Yeah, the GOP has shown themselves to be a bunch of hypocrites and assholes (surprise), but blaming the party is ignoring the bigger problem. There are enough deplorables in America to make Trump a major party candidate.
And before we have anyone say “but look, the Democrats have Clinton” - the Democrats didn’t have a huge field to choose from. The GOP had 15 candidates, most would have been better choices than Trump (Ben Carson stands out as a possibly worse choice). Yet given career politicians, their base (or those that showed up to vote for in the Primary) chose a reality TV star and crass billionaire.
This would be true if we hadn’t seen the embrace of the tea party in 2010. The same people who voted Trump into his current role are the same assholes who formed the Tea Party a few years ago.
I put a big, big chunk of the blame on the GOP and guys like Romney because they embraced Trump in the height of his birtherism in 2012. They tolerated birtherism and similar racist nonsense for many years. They allowed all this stuff to sway their base for years without fighting it, and now they are reaping the bounty.
True. As far as I know RNC had no option not to put him on the ticket for general. Individual politicians did not have to endorse him, of course, and could have just kept their mouths shut (and some did, and some explicitly said they wouldn’t vote for him).
I think we, the public, the people, voters on the other side, can blame the electorate because the largest portion voted for him. Actual (GOP) politicians can’t do that and still get elected. They don’t want to blame themselves, either, of course, but just throw Trump under the bus with “he betrayed the trust we put in him” comments and the like, even though those aren’t really true.
But where the GOP does bear blame is in fanning the flames of those people that wanted someone like Trump. They’ve intentionally courted them. The huge obstructionism after Obama was elected - the stated goal of making him a one-term president instead of stated goal to serve the country. Multiple politicians not shutting down “Kenyan Muslim” comments (credit to some who didn’t tolerate that). The acceptance of racism by candidates. The disdain for intellectualism and higher education. The RINO accusations, the heavy polarization and refusal to work with Democrats. Extremism exists in the Democratic voters, too, but doesn’t get pandered to to nearly the same degree.
I don’t think it’s necessarily ignoring that problem, but saying that the GOP helped make that problem by reinforcing the correctness of those beliefs which lead to Trump’s nomination. But I agree that regardless of why they exist, they do exist, and do make up a sizeable contingent of the Republican primary voters. Then they challenge any actions that might be taken to change the minds of those voters, because that might cost them votes.
The Republican voters. Donald Trump won the Republican nominee by appealing to Republican voters. It was the Republicans who turned out and voted for Trump in the Republican Primary. Not the electorate as a whole. Not the Democrats. Not the Undecideds or Independents. The Republicans.
The Republican party held a primary election. They allowed Donald Trump to run. They specifically framed the early Republican debates to allow for candidates with big poll numbers. The head of the Republican National Committee specifically made a deal with the other Republican candidates that they would all support each other, including Donald Trump, who was running as a Republican. Donald Trump recevied the most attention from the Republican National Committee and when Donald Trump won the Republican Primary by amassing the most votes from Republicans, the Republican National Committee endorsed him completely. The Republican National Committee has stood by Donald for months now, even though his appalling behavior has been well documented and remarked upon, because Republican politicians have been eager to court the votes of Donald’s Republican voters. The Republican National Committee has even been shouldering most of the burden and most of the bills for the Republican Nominee, Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has spent the last year sucking up to Republican groups because he wants the votes of those Republican groups - groups like Focus on the Family. Even the Evangelical Republicans have fallen in line to support Donald Trump, because while he may not be a Christian - he’s a Republican and the Republican Candidate chosen by Republican voters and Donald has promised to promote Republican judges to enact Evangelical Republican votes.
Luckily, the Deplorables - the racists, the sexists, the xenophobes - are essentially all located in one party, so their influence is pretty limited. The Deplorables are all Republican so they can claim to be the Republican base, but the other 70% of the electorate outnumbers them. There are enough Republican Deplorables for them to be drive the agenda of the Republican Party, and certainly the Republican Deplorables are responsible for choosing Trump to be the Republican Candidate.
But it’s not a problem with the electorate at large. Donald Trump is the Republican Choice for president, but he’s not going to win the election. There aren’t enough Republicans to win a Presidential election by appealing only to the Republican Deplorables.
The rest of the electorate, outside the Republican Party, didn’t choose Donald to represent them and aren’t going to vote for him. This a purely Republican problem - and honestly, it’s only a problem if you actually hope for a Republican president. Given how deplorable Republican Presidents are, it’s easy to see why this is not a problem for the electorate at large.
Republicans chose this. Republicans own this. Republicans got to this point one step at a time, but it was a path they took with their eyes wide open.
Back on scenarios to worry Dems, what if Trump announces his intention to resign immediately after taking office? All the never-Trump people can vote for him with a clean conscience knowing it’s actually a vote for Pence. And Trump fans, being well-versed in denial, could convince themselves that he’s kidding and will stick around.
Realistic?
That is why it could be done informally through a PAC.
Remember, one is only voting for a slate of electors. Even though the ballot says “Donald Trump” the slate of electors could still vote for Pence. There is no “writing in” Pence.
I don’t even know what that word means, anymore. Roughly a thousand years ago, when Jeb(!) was the prohibitive favorite because he had sucked all the money out of the room, that seemed “realistic”. Then I blinked and poof!..gone!
Then watched as Trump stepped on his dick, and then stepped on his dick, and yet again…and, nothing much happened. Then, ten years ago he was an asshole, and two days ago we found out and boom! he augered in and drilled himself a crater. He’s deadjim.
Reasonable and intelligent analysis is bupkis. Who the fuck knows what “realistic” means in a world half Salvador Dali and half Hieronymus Bosch. With just a dash of Grant Wood for the all-important nuance of despair.
Christ, what an imagination I’ve got!
To me the astonishing thing is that anyone has any qualms about voting for Hillary, especially given that she is running against Trump. Hillary Clinton is so much better qualified and will be a much better president than Trump ever would be. Most of the arguments against Hillary are made-up bullshit.