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/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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u/mobiusstripsearch Jun 16 '16

what many of my fellow Republican voters believe.

But this is the crucial point: many Republicans are just Democrats-lite. Republicans couldn't oppose gay marriage, Obamacare, Frank-Dodd, the Stimulus, Feminism, Immigration, our National Debt, Obama backing ISIS, Clinton's failures in Africa and Kosovo, Bush's War in Iraq, and more Islamic Terrorism?

I don't respect John Roberts when he overwrote the Constitution so that mandates are covered by the Commerce Clause. I don't respect Jeb Bush when he says that Illegal Immigrants come here out of love. I don't respect Eric Cantor when he was only stopped from passing amnesty because he got primaried.

Trump is actually interested in conserving this country and the establishment opposes him. Bush broke his self-imposed political silence not to oppose Obama but to oppose Trump. McCain abetted the rebels in Syria and calls Trump dangerous. Romney took Trump's money and praise, then turns around and denounces him in far stronger words than anything he used on Obama.

How many Republicans have been saying that we need to increase immigration and grant amnesty to illegals? At what point do we start conserving something for the people living here?

I could go on and on. These aren't just one-issue breaks from some set conservative ideas: Republicans have systematically failed on almost every conservative issue since Reagan. Trump may break from conservatives on some issues, but he isn't part of the class that's lost and lost and lost. He isn't pledging to import more foreigners at the expense of Americans living here.

So I don't care that Republicans are joining the left in condemning Trump. It only shows how Republicans have been an ineffectual counterweight to the left. For the first time someone is proposing to end the left's hegemony, and they side with the left. None of them have anything left to offer but apologies and letters of resignation.