Politico has a piece confirming the Trumpists are clenching their fist tighter and tighter on the Republican Party apparatus:
President Donald Trump is tightening his iron grip on the Republican Party, launching an elaborate effort to stamp out any vestiges of GOP opposition that might embarrass him at the 2020 Republican convention.
The president’s reelection campaign is intent on avoiding the kind of circus that unfolded on the convention floor in 2016, when Never Trump Republicans loudly protested his nomination before a national TV audience. The effort comes as party elites like Utah Sen. Mitt Romney are openly questioning Trump’s fitness for the job, and it’s meant to ensure that delegates at next year’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., are presidential loyalists — not anti-Trump activists looking to create a stir.
But what sparked a new thought was this:
Delegate selection will be preceded by an array of elections for GOP state chairmanships, which began last month. Ohio GOP chief Jane Timken, a close Trump ally, is expected to be easily reelected this week. There are also key contests in Florida and New Hampshire.
The winners of those chairmanships will play major roles in determining who becomes a delegate in Charlotte. Trump aides have been making calls to those states in recent weeks to take stock of the contenders and determine how the contests are likely to play out.
“We are monitoring, tracking, and ensuring the president’s allies are sitting at the top of state parties,” Stepien said.
In the months that follow, individual states will determine how to select their delegates. While some state parties will choose their delegates on their own, others will pick them through conventions or caucuses. Some will hold elections where Republican voters decide.
In each case, the Trump campaign is planning on influencing the process — in some instances by organizing at local conventions, and in others by helping Trump supporters wage campaigns for delegate slots.
And what makes for “… the president’s allies …”?
Think about it. It seems reasonable – to me – to presume an ally of President Trump is someone who approves of lying, taking credit when not due, hyperbolizing beyond all rationalization, and a few other character traits which, frankly, I was taught are not desirable in anyone.
Much less a President.
But these allies of the President are now attempting to take over the levers of power. Quite honestly, if I was a moderate Republican, I would be on my way to the mailbox with that envelope containing my GOP membership card and a letter of resignation. After all, a coterie of people who approve of a lying braggart, who probably are themselves the same, are now trying to take over the entire party.
Can this end well for that moderate Republican?
I’m sure the Trump Team can simply claim that they’re wrapping up a nomination as early as possible and that it’s simply good politics, and I don’t doubt they’re being honest about it, because for them, as the old saying goes, Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing. Sadly, this is rarely true, and it isn’t at this time in American politics. Perhaps for Trump, losing would be the end of his political career, but for the American who believes in country over party, this attempt to shield Trump from intra-Party competition damages the country, rather than improves it, because we need the best candidate the Republicans can provide – not an amateur-hour politician who has proven himself to be a weak and easily manipulated man, incapable of learning or even concentrating. He mistakes bluster for strength, random chaos for strategy.
That’s not what America needs.
So I expect this purification effort in what used to be the Republican Party to squeeze more moderates out and move the party ever further into the wastelands of extremism. Look for the theocrats, such as Jerry Falwell, Jr., delighting in their new-found access to power & influence, to find more and more outlandish ways to justify their pleasure in being in proximity to President Trump.
The party will become more of a strait-jacket, and conservatism, in itself an honorable political tradition when practiced with honesty and wisdom, become more and more discredited. That, too, will be unfortunate, but I think almost inevitable when it has the face of such dishonorable people as Trump, McConnell, Ryan, Falwell, and everyone else swearing fealty to Trump.
