In my first installment, I looked at Trump riding in the same political ecology as Ross Perot did a quarter-century ago. Rocky's question, to reprise was
I wonder how the frustration of the constituents can be a) defined and b) communicated, then c) transformed? Are we looking at a revised GOP or even a new Party?
How the Trumpeters are dealt with depends on how far The Donald goes this year. The leader in the clubhouse on that last question is "a revised GOP" How that goes down depends upon three general possibilities.
(1) Trump loses a "brokered" convention; it's mathematically possible for Cruz to win pre-Cleveland, but not by much, so barring something catastrophic happening (Trump has been Teflon Don on the gaffe front so far, so good luck with that), stopping Trump will need a trip to Cleveland.
(2) Trump wins the nomination, either outright or at the convention, then loses to the Democratic nominee (Hillary if she isn't forced to drop out due to legal issues) in November.
(3) Trump gets elected president, and we get at least four years of President Trump.
The first option has a lot of pitfalls, the first of which is the prospect of Trump taking his ball and going third-party. However, Trump would have a hard time getting on some ballots if he waits until the California primary day on June 7th. Texas has its filing deadline on May 9th while North Carolina has its deadline June 9th. Those would be two states Trump would want to win in November or, if he's in a scorched-earth mode, want to mess with the GOP nominee in.
However, the others states have deadlines late enough in June to make a third-party run feasible. There's also the possibility of borrowing an existing party's line rather than having to do ballot-access wholesale, but the available ones are poor fits; Constitution is too Religious Right to be a good fit, Libertarians wouldn't like Trump's autocratic streak and the remnants of the Reform Party are so weak that what little ballot-access they have might not be worth it.
How would the GOP keep Trump and his fans in the tent, both for November and for the long haul?
You could start by adopting the new insurgents' pet issues. One of the features of a convention is the party platform, largely laid out by the prospective nominee's team but often including "Platform fights" over a plank or two at the convention proper.
That would start with a hawkish plank on immigration, including the building of a wall on the southern border, better application of E-Verify or something like it to catch folks using false SS# to get jobs and better tracking of legal immigrants who overstay their welcome. Done right, it can placate both Trump's fans and more moderate folks who don't want to see a "papers, please" police state for non-Anglo-looking folks. Actually having the House come up with a prototype bill covering those issues would be a good start and have something concrete to point to rather than a theoretical item forgotten once everyone leaves Cleveland.
It also wouldn't be too hard to include in the immigration package tighter screening of immigrants from radical-Islam hotbeds. For instance, the wife of the San Bernadino shooting duo had a social-media trail as a jihad-fan, but only your standard watch-lists were looked at by the immigration folks, which didn't include her; running those traps might catch a few folks who have gotten through in the past without throwing up any First Amendment red-flags. That would placate that Islamophobic streak in the Trumpeters as well as be a sound procedure for everyone this side of CAIR.
Some anti-ISIS boilerplate would be called for, whether or not we're in Trump-suck-up mode or not.
Secondly, you could put in new blood at the RNC, ones that aren't wedded to the status quo. If Trump fans dislike the party establishment, the party chair is a good place to start. The current chair, Reince Priebus, has a track-record of working with both Tea Partiers and establishment folks, not unlike fellow Cheesehead Paul Ryan.
However, his background as a corporate lawyer before heading first the Wisconsin GOP and the national GOP makes him a card-carrying establishmentarian. His term doesn't end until early 2017, so making a change at the convention would require Priebus stepping aside ahead of time; finding him a nice lobbying/corporate law job to land into would be one way to grease the skids.
Those two moves would have the wholehearted support of the Cruz camp, for Cruz is no fan of amnesty and open borders and no fan of the party bosses.
A third move would be to put a Trumpeter in as VP nominee. Trump himself would be a questionable choice for a running mate for Cruz or whomever emerges from Lake Erie in July. A Cruz-Christie ticket might work, giving a northeastern moderate who's hawkish on national security (and a Trump backer) to balance out Señor Rafael E. Cruz from Texas.
What doesn't get touched on here is trade. That was the one part of the Perot platform that was not co-opted by the GOP in the mid-90s. That's one that will be fighting words with the old-school party establishment, for they have a preferential option towards Corporate America, and CA likes free-trade by and large, unless they are in a non-competitive industry. Also, the libertarian streak in the GOP like free-trade, as it lowers prices and keeps US businesses honest without tariffs and quotas to protect them.
Keeping the nationalists/protectionists happy would require some rhetoric on China, talking about protecting the international shipping and air-travel rights in the Sea of Japan, critiquing the currency-games played by Beijing, and critiquing some unaccountable agencies in the proposed deals with the Pacific Rim and the EU. That could be done with a Trump-Cruz coalition as well, although it would be hard to put into actionable language.
Putting the writing on the southern Wall, presenting the RNC chair's head on a silver platter, nominating a Trumpeter for VP and criticing China and some of the too-globalized trade deals might be enough to do the job if Trump falls short of the majority. None of the above things are too outside the realm of modern conservative thought and make a nod to the roused rabble the establishment doesn't have a clue about.
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