The Last Days of the Republican Party
DUMP TRUMP PART II
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There are two alternatives, as I see it.
- Do nothing.
Go straight ahead on red with the overwhelming prohibitive presumptive nominee, a man who insulted the president on TV while on a business trip to Scotland, his day job; a man for whom running for president is a diversion in daily routine, like going to Costco; a man who is a total fraud, nothing but an insecure, money-grubbing real estate hondler, a dangerous egomaniacal lunatic who we can only pray goes away and sticks with his hotels and golf resorts. And those are the good things I can say about him.
SPOILER ALERT: Your man is on a trajectory to guarantee his party’s most embarrassing, even fatal, set back since Gov. Alf Landon, who managed to win two states in 1936 (not including his own Kansas). His loss will be HUGE. - Do something. If only Ronald Reagan was alive, and with all his marbles. Or Ike. Resurrection is too religious for me so I wont go there.
I have a plan.
Consider those stalwarts of Republicanism, the 1,542 delegates who are said to be committed to follow the dictates of the idiot wing of the party who saw The Six Billion Dollar Man as the best and brightest of our 17 wannabees to Captain the ship of state through shark-filled troubled waters in this chaotic fragmented unpredictable time in history.
They are also the soft underbelly of the supposedly invincible presumptive nominee, the area of vulnerability for a creative unorthodox approach to testing their convictions.
What I am about to propose violates the rules of the convention.
They are sacrosanct, we are told. They cannot be broken. Space limitations prevent me from listing all the times this rule was broken. They are especially breakable in this campaign when the winner broke every rule in the political playbook. Convention rules are as rigid and unbending as a rubber band.
There is a growing Dump Trump movement, fed by corporate money, with the fat cats establishing the usual SuperPACs, alerting the public to the thin ice ahead.
With all due respect, these noble idealists are doing it wrong.
Instead of wasting money on TV and radio commercials, hiring volunteer robocallers, I propose a direct marketing campaign. Go directly to the buyers. Spend the money on delegates, requesting they think it over. And for their time thinking, they will be reimbursed.
The Supreme Court has ruled (Citizens United) corporations are people. As people they have every right to be involved in decision making. It’s the law of the land for them to take sides in their best interests.
If corporations are people, then it could follow delegates are also people with legitimate human emotions, such as concern for the welfare of their families.
The sales pitch:
Is it enough for you to have been one of that band of brothers, the 1,532 bros who killed the Republican Party in 2016?
The question they should be asking, given the mercantile nature of the party, what’s in it for me?
Do I want to go down with the sinking ship, arranging the deck chairs as the Titanic of American politics goes under? Or am I a survivor, a courageous person who looks after his loved ones and himself, whichever comes first.
Every man has his price, as Sir Robert Walpole said in 1734. It’s still true today.
For some it is a seat on a Fortune 500 company as the public’s member.
For some it is membership in the golf club of their dreams, with waived fees for the duration of life.
For others it might be money, a compensatory bonus for having to sit and listen to all the boring convention rubbish, before voting the courage of their convictions in not supporting the presumptive nominee.
Some people may not be selling out because they don’t know what their price is. I further propose that an exchange be established as a public service to regulate in an orderly manner the business of selling out. Records of who sold out and the price would be available for who or whomever it may concern.
Such a Selling Out Exchange would serve a useful function not only at conventions but also for all public policy questions, informing in an orderly and responsible way who is in which fat cat’s pocket, and for how much.
In the spirit of transparency, corporations contributing to the slush fund making all of this possible might list contributions on their annual reports as educational projects, counseling, civics lessons, and so forth.
Now I realize some will say the Kitman Plan smacks of bribery. But the public-spirited corporations participating in this program could argue they are only informing delegates of their opportunities for advancement. As George Washington Plunkitt, the leader of Tammany Hall in the 19th century explained about the concept of honest graft, “I seen my opportunities, and took’em.”
NEXT: HOW DUMP TRUMP WILL WORK
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Marvin Kitman
June 28, 2016