Insurgencies in the 2016 Presidential Election

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders launched insurgent political campaigns against their respective political parties; Trump against the RNC and Sanders against the DNC. Trump won, and Bernie lost. Trump won because, quite simply, the rules of the Republican Party were "democratic." Bernie lost because the rules of the Democratic Party were not.

Now in both cases, one could argue that the reason things are where they are is more nuanced than that. Okay, but understand this; the GOP and the Democratic Party are non-governmental organizations. They write the rules for how nominees for offices up and down the ticket are chosen. If you don't like those rules, tough. Get involved in party politics and change them. Otherwise, you'll have to live by them.

Bernie Sanders' Failed Insurgency

Bernie Sanders, an independent, launched a bid to grab the Democratic Party by the throat and choke the moderate out of it. Sanders called for economic policies specifically targeted at reducing the gap between the top 1% and the other  99% of Americans -- expand social security, make public college tuition free, provide paid family and medical leave and universal health care, increase the minimum wage, implement a youth jobs program, and, with all the money that's left over, institute a trillion dollar program to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure. Sanders had ways to pay for all of this. They all amounted to essentially the same thing -- tax the rich. So, in political terms, Bernie was trying to hijack the Democratic Party and make it a Social Democratic Party.

Conservatives and even moderate democrats, immediately saw Bernie Sanders' objective for what it was -- a redistribution of wealth. Duh! How does one reduce the gap between really, really rich people, and all the rest of us? You take the land from the rich landowners and you parcel it out to poor farmers. Then you watch as your country goes broke and your people go hungry. Hey, it's politics -- hyperbole is de rigueur. In any case, this is the conservative worldview.

There were a lot of young people who resonated with Bernie Sanders' messianic message and his passion, and his powdery snow hair. The problem was, they hadn't really participated in party politics before "feeling the Bern." Because they hadn't 'infiltrated' the party, their revolution was doomed from the beginning. Had they been in leadership positions in the DNC, they could've eliminated or at least reduced the number of superdelegates. Because, as the Pew Research Center has said, " superdelegates are the embodiment of the institutional Democratic Party – everyone from former presidents, congressional leaders and big-money fundraisers to mayors, labor leaders and longtime local party functionaries." These party faithful didn't want an outsider taking over 'their' party and because they'd prepared for just such a contingency, they were able to prevent it.

The Democratic Party's Superdelegates

Donald J Trump's Successful Insurgency

The GOP has many fewer superdelegates than the Democrats -- 250 or 7% vs the Democratic Party's 713 or 15%. In the Republican Party, the only people who get superdelegate status are the three members of each state's national party. The more important distinction, however, as Seth Millstein has pointed out, is that Republican superdelegates do not have the freedom to vote for whichever candidate they please. The RNC ruled in 2015 that their superdelegates must vote for the candidate that their state voted for. In effect, the GOP is more democratic than the Democratic Party. Is this a good thing?

If the GOP had convened in Cleveland with as many superdelegates as the Democratic Party had, and if the rules permitted them to vote their conscience, and assuming they had such, would Donald Trump have emerged as the Republican Nominee? Hopefully, not.

As Jeff Greenfield wrote,

There are some circumstances where the “will of the voters”—often the will of a plurality of voters—may well put the party on the road to a massive political defeat. Further, it may result in the nomination of a candidate who violates the most fundamental beliefs of that party. Or whose temperament and character might put a dangerous, unfit person into the Oval Office. Under those circumstances, the existence of a bloc of superdelegates means the presence of an “emergency brake,” a last chance to avoid disaster. And while it may be “undemocratic” in the narrowest sense of that term, our political system is replete with “undemocratic” elements that have served us very well.

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight now forecasts the chances of Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential election as 12.5%. The same poll forecasts that the GOP has a 72% chance of losing the Senate. What happens to the Republican Party after the election depends on what the Republican Party leadership does now. Republicans cannot have their party and let Trump eat it, too.

Republican leaders in the House and Senate must stop fighting this pusillanimous, rearguard action, and launch a frontal attack against the Trump insurgency. If they don't decisively distance themselves now from 'The Donald,' the Grand Old Party will go the way of the 'Know-Nothings,' a fate they will justly deserve. What the American people won't deserve is what may replace the GOP -- a neo-fascist amalgamation of all the worst elements of Donald Trump's constituency.

The GOP's Strategy for Winning Hearts and Minds, and the 2016 Election

The GOP has been working at winning the 2016 Presidential Election since Barack Obama won the 2008 election. Mitch McConnell made that clear in a talk to the Heritage Foundation way back in 2010. You remember that business about the Republican priority being to limit Obama to one term? That was just one of among the many things Republicans didn't accomplish in all those 8 years.

It may be that initially, Republicans saw their opposition to President-Elect Obama as part of the "loyal opposition" tradition in politics. But when they began to see the handwriting on the wall -- the public mood and demographics meant that Obama wasn't going away anytime soon -- they turned their sights on another goal; turn Americans against government. After all, it wasn't "their government."

The Republican strategy was simple. Turn loyal opposition into outright obstructionism. If nothing works, if policies aren't prosecuted, if laws aren't passed, if vacancies aren't filled, it thwarts the Obama "liberal agenda," and as a bonus, Americans become disillusioned with government. When that happens, they'll be less likely to turn out for elections. That would favor Republicans, as it historically has, and as it did, ultimately putting the "Grand Old Party" back in control of both the House and the Senate.

The American public's approval rating for Congress has reflected the success of the GOP strategy. Back in the Year 2000, 56% of Americans approved of the way congress "handled its job." Today, that percentage has dropped to 18%.

Now, moving into the 2016 election, the presumptive nominee for the GOP, Donald Trump, trumpets the slogan, "Make America Great Again." You can buy a hat from Trump's campaign site with that slogan on it. I'd be cautious about buying anything else from Trump. His track record with truth is not good, nor are the business deals he brags about, which no less a conservative voice than the National Review, has described with poison-pen contempt.

How did such a man become the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States? The answer to that truly puzzeling question can be found in the strategy employed by the GOP leading up to the debacle that is their pending armageddon. That strategy started first with the burn down government program already addressed, followed by this general plan.

Reach out to "low information, low propensity" registered Republicans, who make up some 35% of the Republican base and generally don't vote.

Make a concerted get out the vote (GOTV) effort through direct, personal contact. These folks don't do social media. Some of the organizations leading the charge on this GOTV effort are:

UNIFIED PATRIOTS

REDSTATE

THE PRECINCTS PROJECT

US PRECINCT PROJECT

Unite the right-wing base, including the following:

National Rifle Association (NRA), Gun Owners of America (GOA), other gun groups, and militia organizations whose membership have exploded since Barack Obama was elected. Militia membership often overlaps with gun group membership. Republican strategists estimate that only half of the membership in these organizations are registered voters, and of those, only half vote. They consider this fertile ground for plowing.

The Tea Party, which has split into the Tea Party Patriots, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Express, and unaffilated voters who call themselves Tea Partiers. A unified Tea Party gave the Republicans the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014 (with the complicity of an apathetic democratic electorate). In some sense, the success that Tea Party affiliated voters achieved in 2010 and 2014 was their undoing. They lost momentum, lost faith, became divided, and lost their punch. The Republican establishment, although anathema to Tea Partiers, will try to regain their trust, and their vote.

The 9-12 Project is a Ayn Rand sort of group with god thrown in for good measure. They describe their organization as a "non-partisan movement focusing on building and uniting our communities back to the place we were on 9/12/2001." Their principles include, "Government cannot force me to be charitable." The Republican establsihment sees 9-12 as a fringe of the Libertarian Party and hope to embrace them, at least until the 2016 election is over.

Smart Girl Politics Action (SGPA) describes itself as, "a grassroots community of women activists who believe in the free market, personal responsibility, and limited government." SGPA began with the mission to "engage, educate, and empower conservative women to get involved in the political process." They are essentially an organized component of Republican women. The RNC won't have to do much to entice them into the fold, but they may be pressed to GOTV for "The Donald."

SarahPAC.com is just what you'd expect it to be. Sarah Palin's personal money making venture desigend to capatilize on what she terms "her historic endorsement of Donald Trump." Palin's fund-raising message to prospective donors is that she's supporting "anti-establishment" candidates, but the RNC isn't particular. If they can glom on to Sarah's "momma grizzlies," they will. 

Grassfire formerly Patriot Action Network. This organization appears to be very social media centric. The RNC will use it to network with the organizations outlined above.

Evangelical Christians. In the recent midterm elections, white evangelicals or born-again Christians made up 26 percent of the electorate and voted for Republican candidates 78 percent to 22%.During the primaries, a plurality of self-identified white evangelicals voted for Trump (40%), while the majority split their votes between Ted Cruz (34%), Marco Rubio (11%), and John Kasich (10%). The RNC's challenge is to unify that voting block behind their presumptive nominee. It shouldn't be a problem, unless Trump says something really outrageous ("Two Corinthians" notwithstanding).

AsaMom is a "sisterhood of mommy patriots," or so it's website says.  Their mission is "to empower Moms and Moms at Heart in preserving our Constitution, country and children’s future." Their 9 principles are the same as The 9-12 Project's principles. The RNC has to convince this voting block that Donald Trump is only kidding when he says it doesn't matter what the media say as long as you have a beautiful "piece of ass" with you. Some moms might object to being objectified.

The problem the RNC had in trying to unify these groups whose commonality was primarily angry dissatisfation, was that the RNC was the "establishment" and it was peddling the same, tired establishment bullshit about Obama Care "death panels," "abortion on demand," the refusal of Obama to say "Islamic terrorism," the climate change "hoax," transgender "predators" in bathrooms, violation of Americans' Second Amendment rights, and the need to donate to the RNC to compensate for George Soros's flood of money going to the DNC. In other words, they totally misjudged the give-a-shit basis for their audience's disatisfaction, which was poor-paying jobs, no jobs, shitty jobs, and Mexicans taking all the shitty jobs that they didn't want, but were unhappy to see said Mexicans making money at. So yeah, "Fuck you, RNC, we'll vote for an asshole. That'll teach you!" And voilà -- Donald Trump.

“I will be the greatest jobs president God ever created.”

Donald Trump 2015 camapign announcement