Ed: As antidote to the reports from our MSM “correspondents” watching the Republican convention, here’s what our bona-fide American correspondent sent us:
The NeverTrumpers have been crushed on the floor of the Republican Convention. Squashed bugs.
They were attempting to change a rule that requires delegates to vote for the candidate the voters in their district voted for in the state’s primary, on the first ballot. A bound delegate must vote for the candidate, an unbound delegate may vote for the candidate. As it stands now, the first ballot will almost certainly give Trump/Pence the nomination, and the rest is detail.
But first they had to vote to allow the vote on the rule. A vote can be conducted in one of two ways: voice acclamation (shouting); or a show of hands (counting). The NeverTrumpers wanted a show of hands. In order to get that, they had to have signatures from delegates from 9 specific states. And they had them. They thought.
The Trump campaign hit the floor and whipped it. To ‘whip’ is to ‘persuade’ with the promise of great rewards or broken knee caps, your choice. They whipped the state count down to 7, the chair authorized a voice acclamation vote, and the NeverTrumpers were literally shouted down. Some of them have walked out in a snit.
There was another Rules Committee vote no one paid attention to. And it had nothing to do with Trump. It was about Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, and his power. It proposed removing control of the rules from the Speaker (regardless of who it is) down to the delegate level. Apparently it was defeated in committee, but rumor has it the delegates will be voting on it.
I don’t know who is going to win the election. But I do know politics follow culture and what just happened on the convention floor was a perfect example. Donald Trump wiped the Primary floors with the backsides of seventeen of the best the Republican Party could produce. Right, ‘low bar’, I get it. But why? The man isn’t even a conservative! That’s like nominating a Lutheran for the Papacy! Ok, maybe an Episcopalian … [Ed:that’s the USA equivalent of the CofE].
It’s because ‘conservatism’, as it has been commonly understood since William Buckley purged the John Birch Society from its ranks, is dead. The Republican convention is the funeral. Its populist usurper, Donald Trump, is presiding over the burial.
Conservatism was killed by betrayal. Open borders, ‘free trade’, job stealing immigration policies, an ever-expanding deficit that will, literally, enslave our grandchildren if not our children, and a refusal to acknowledge the existential threat to Western Civilization presented by Islam, let alone fight it. Have I forgotten anything? No. I’m saving the best for last.
We are no longer a nation of laws.
As Brits, you may not be aware of an illegal gun running operation directed by Eric Holder’s Dept. of Justice [Ed: Eric Holder was Obama’s appointee]. It was code named “Fast and Furious”. It allowed guns to be sold to Mexican drug cartels in the hope the guns would be found at crime scenes in the U.S. and provide a rationale for restricting our 2nd Amendment rights. The operation was blown when one of the guns was used to murder Border Agent Brian Terry. That they were also used to murder countless innocent Mexicans is rarely acknowledged.
No one has been sent to prison.
The Internal Revenue Service was used by the Obama administration to punish political enemies, such as members of the Tea Party and True the Vote [Ed: an organisation watching out for voting malfeasance]. It engaged in widespread destruction of evidence that would put anyone else in prison for decades. The IRS has the power to seize assets without due process, it has its own courts that do not provide Constitutional rights to defendants. It is a rogue organization, it always has been and it has no place in a free society. People have only recently begun to understand the infection in the body politic it truly is, so in that sense alone the Tea Party debacle has served a good purpose.
No one has been sent to prison.
And, last but not least, a woman guilty of criminal conduct – dare I say ‘treason? yes, I dare – while Secretary of State, an accomplice to the murder of four Americans in Benghazi, who is actually on film sniggering about the murder of Gadaffi (“We came, we saw, he died! Ha!Ha!”) – is a candidate for POTUS …
I don’t want to hear one damn word about Donald Trump’s ‘lack of experience’!
In late February, I predicted that Trump would be the Republican nominee and received much scorn.
Conservatism is not dead at the Republican convention, as this has been the most conservative convention platform in generations since the days of Barry Goldwater. Trump’s selection of Mike Pence as his running mate was a stroke of sheer genius, as Mike Pence is a solid mid-west U.S. conservative and an Evangelical Christian. Prior to Pence’s selection, Trump had garnered some endorsements from a few Evangelical groups, but with Pence now on the ticket comes the rest of the Evangelical voting bloc.
This is an ENORMOUS and powerful demographic who sat out the 2012 election therefore causing Romney to lose the election. Mike Pence has been one of the billionaire Koch brothers “golden boys,” and was their hand chosen candidate to run for president this go round.
All of the Koch brothers persuading could not for some reason convince Pence to throw his hat in the ring. Until now, the brothers have been loathe to endorse Trump, but with their man Pence on the ticket, one can expect an endorsement forthwith.
Along with that endorsement,comes the brothers’ vast financial fundraising resources through their super pacs (fundraising operations which are able to operate outside of the government election laws) and their enormous volunteer network, the latter being another strength of the Evangelicals as well.
In the beginning,I had my doubts about Trump until conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly, age 90 and a long time friend of my late father’s endorsed him. I rang her after her endorsement, and she had me convinced within in minutes calling him; “the last hope for the country!” She also stated that her great friend and my adopted American father and conservative hero William F. Buckley: ” would unequivocally endorse Trump if he were alive today.”
The Bush-Cameron brand of faux conservatism may be dead in the U.S., but the Schlafly-Buckley brand is most assuredly not!
Pamela thank you so much for sharing this with us which comes like a breath of fresh air. I have been following the US election with avid interest because what goes on there affects us all. I’m delighted to learn that I am not alone in this. I find American politics much more open than our home-grown variety. Things well-hidden here are laid bare there. In my experience hidden things can sometimes be much worse so to anyone who might be thinking ‘only in America’ and thinking politics here is somehow ‘better’ more ‘civilized’ may want to think again. Criminals versus patriots is not something unique to the US.
Might I suggest that we look beyond ideology with its smokescreen label language of socialism, communism, humanism, racism etc.
What matters is not what people say they believe, but what they do. Nor does it matter what they say with their labels what they claim is what we believe, but what we do.
Nigel said this so succinctly: “It’s not about left and right. It’s about right and wrong.”
So let’s keep calm, carry on and ignore the labels.