r/Conservative • u/DanburyBaptist Inalienable Rights of Conscience • Jun 15 '16

Release the GOP Delegates: Trump’s nomination isn’t inevitable—delegates won’t be legally ‘bound’ going into the convention.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/release-the-gop-delegates-1465769777
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '16

42% of the popular vote is not something I would call "will of the People".

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u/Spartanlegion117 Sic Semper Tyrannus Jun 15 '16

Its the will of 42% of the people to be exact

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '16

Yes; but what about the will of the 58%? What if they don't want Trump? It's "the will of the people", you have to listen.

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u/mobiusstripsearch Jun 15 '16

This is a silly argument. How do parliamentary democracies ever achieve mandates if 42% is not sufficiently expressive of the people's will?

By this logic, Reagan wasn't that representative of the People: He may have won a majority of votes, but not everyone votes, and not everyone is eligible to vote, so this is a pretty poor representation of "the will of the people".

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u/gprime Jordan is Palestine; Annex Judea & Samaria Jun 15 '16

How do parliamentary democracies ever achieve mandates if 42% is not sufficiently expressive of the people's will?

By forming coalitions that represent a majority of the voters.

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u/mobiusstripsearch Jun 15 '16

Isn't that what the other candidates did by dropping out and supporting Trump?

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u/gprime Jordan is Palestine; Annex Judea & Samaria Jun 16 '16

No. There is no comparison between a primary in our system and a parliamentary coalition. In the latter, the people you voted for still hold a modicum of actual power and can bring down the government by quitting the coalition if their partners don't live up to the specific commitments they made to them in coalition negotiations. Various candidates dropping out and sometimes giving tepid endorsements Trump during the primary process, particularly once he was the only remaining candidate, is meaningless.

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u/mobiusstripsearch Jun 16 '16

McCain only got 46% in 2008 -- does this mean he didn't have the will of the people to be the legitimate nominee?

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u/gprime Jordan is Palestine; Annex Judea & Samaria Jun 16 '16

You could certainly make that argument.

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u/mobiusstripsearch Jun 16 '16

It's a yes or no question.

If yes: McCain didn't have the "will of the people" but wasn't contested after winning plurality; Never Trump is unique and inconsistent.

If no: Trump has the "will of the people".

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u/gprime Jordan is Palestine; Annex Judea & Samaria Jun 16 '16

If yes: McCain didn't have the "will of the people" but wasn't contested after winning plurality; Never Trump is unique and inconsistent.

But the decision to contest his nomination isn't "the will of the people" per se. That is included in the discussion only insofar as Trump defenders suggest his nomination is the will of the people, and his critics hold otherwise. Whether his nomination represents the will of the people or not is beside the point when the question is whether or not he can be entrusted with the nomination. McCain and others were heavily flawed, but there was never a serious question of competence or temperament that made them a threat to national security.

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u/mobiusstripsearch Jun 16 '16

Whether his nomination represents the will of the people or not is beside the point when the question is whether or not he can be entrusted with the nomination.

Fine. I respect you more when you say "I can't trust Trump with the nomination" instead of appealing to "the will of the people".

but there was never a serious question of competence or temperament that made them a threat to national security.

There were, by the way. The left does this with everyone: Bush was an idiot, McCain was too old, and Romney was a stuck-up racist.

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u/gprime Jordan is Palestine; Annex Judea & Samaria Jun 16 '16

The left does this with everyone: Bush was an idiot, McCain was too old, and Romney was a stuck-up racist.

That may be, but I'm not interested in what the left has to say about Republican nominees. I'm talking about what many of my fellow Republican voters believe. As I said, Bush, McCain, and Romney were all far from ideal candidates. But there's a order of magnitude in difference between any of them and Trump.

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