It is the morning after a very interesting and suspense-filled primary voting night. Republican Presidential hopeful, Donald Trump had huge wins in three states: Florida (99 delegates), Illinois (21 delegates), and North Carolina (29 delegates). In Missouri, Trump and Cruz tied with Trump poised to pick up 20 delegates. At this point, Donald Trump has amassed a total of 661 delegates out of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination. That means that Trump has almost 50 percent of the total delegates needed! The Republican “establishment” is still trying to “Stop Trump”…but it is time for them to get up and drink some tea. Attention Republican Party….You just got TRUMPED!
I cannot believe it, but it appears that the Republican Party is experiencing a major shift. The Tea Party may have started it, but Donald Trump is definitely finishing it! Both the Republican and Democratic political parties have an “establishment”. Before I proceed, I feel compelled to discuss just what “establishment” is understood to mean. I understand it to refer to those who have been active in high levels of the party for SEVERAL years and are wealthy and influential within the party. The “old guards” who discuss and secretly plan the direction of the party on policy. They pick and crown the kings and queens within the party via massive fundraising and political networking. Now that I’ve gotten THAT out of the way, I would like to proceed with discussing how the Republican Party vis a vis “The Establishment” got trumped.
Prior to the March 15th elections, the Republican party poured money into negative advertisements against Trump in an effort to stop his ascension to the clinch to republican nomination. It did not help. Trump is NOT the candidate that they picked (neither is Cruz for that matter) nor did he seek to get their approval. In fact, when it comes to political party affiliation, Trump has been a Democrat, an Independent, and a Republican! In agreement with Jeb Bush, Trump has been a Democrat longer than he has been a Republican. It is ironic that the presidential candidate least aligned with the Republican Party turned out to be the that would most resonate with their base.
At the beginning of all of this, the Republican establishment had a plan to reach pick a candidate that would resonate with their “base”. Well it now seems they apparently did not know who their base was or at the very least they did not want to admit it. They knew they needed to reach conservative Hispanics/Latinos as for as race/ethnicity goes but they ignored class…as usual. They did not want to acknowledge that the base of a party known mostly for being very wealthy is comprised of a very large number of white low-income and working-class. Well, Donald Trump knew that and maybe because it was the “outside looking in” (pun intended). Trump’s willingness to recognize the party’s poorer brethren and sistren was absolutely GENIUS! And THAT is how the Republican Party got trumped.
Thanks for “listening” to me whine. Hopefully my whining has made you think. If so, tell your friends/family/colleagues that you heard it through the Political Great Whine!
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