In concert with this thread concerning the South Carolina GOP’s deepening allegiance to President Trump and Senator-elect Romney’s (R-UT) sharply critical op-ed in WaPo, now the Republican National Committee (RNC) itself is considering protecting President Trump from challengers, according to the Washington Examiner:
Mitt Romney’s scorching critique of President Trump in a New Year’s Day op-ed has sparked a call from within the Republican National Committee to change party rules to protect Trump from any long-shot primary challenge in 2020.
The RNC committeeman representing the Virgin Islands late Tuesday emailed fellow elected members of the national party urging them to change the rules when they convene in New Mexico for their annual winter meeting later this month. Republicans are confident that Trump would hold off any primary challenger, but worry the campaign would derail his re-election.
“Look, the political history is clear. No Republican president opposed for re-nomination has ever won re-election,” RNC committeeman Jevon O.A. Williams said in a email obtained by the Washington Examiner. “Unfortunately, loopholes in the rules governing the 2020 re-nomination campaign are enabling these so-called Republicans to flirt with the possibility of contested primaries and caucuses.”
Note the phrase so-called Republicans. Clearly, the RINO meme is still strong and active among the Republicans, compressing everyone into an automatic bow to President Trump – or a hip-check right out of the GOP.
And will the RNC bow to this inevitable logic and never consider the possibility – nay, certainty – that a weak President Trump running for re-election is inferior to a primary challenger who just might beat him? That’ll measure just how far this profound rot has set in to the Republicans. It’s implicit in Williams’ email, an almost holy belief that Trump is their leader who cannot be betrayed, dumped, or even questioned. He must be protected.
Probably because he’s just not tough enough.
Now perhaps Williams and those who end up agreeing with him view this as an investment on their part. They’ve pledged allegiance to Trump, which takes more than a little political coin, and if they lose him then their political careers are down the drain.
But I think there is an equal part a firm belief in Trump’s charisma and success, persistent despite the failures of the last two years. While willingness to put in one’s lot with a leader is not a measure of a person’s worth, moral or otherwise, the willingness to stick with a third-rater like Trump indicates an inability to evaluate the evidence, an intellectual laziness which does, in fact, signal a second-rate or third-rate intellect.
So will the RNC go along with the proposal? I suspect that as soon as Trump realizes how this proposal will safeguard him from a challenge, he’ll demand it be implemented, long-term consequences be damned.
And the nation will be poorer for it.
