The pledge includes a clause saying that the candidate will support the eventual GOP nominee.
I will never, ever understand how the entire Republican party lined up behind this guy.
Before Trump was elected, they were all vocal about how unfit he was. Too stupid. Too rude.
Then he got the nomination, and they all bent the knee, and became so loyal to him that they protected him from facing the consequences of his insurrection, even when he put their lives in danger.
Well, he became the guy who would sign their shitty legislation, appoint right-wing judges and other officials to long-term positions, undermine regulators, spread fascist propaganda amplified by the power of the presidency, etc. The person with the R next to their name opens the doors for the flood of partisan garbage and shuts down those pesky people who want things like “democracy” and “tap water that doesn’t poison my family.”
The people who were criticizing Trump in the beginning were the ones with brains, that had gotten to the top to exploit power. They’re smart enough to know not to fight against the mob that is their support base. But also stupid enough to bring in someone that can rile up the mob better than they could.
Power. Plain and simple.
He did exactly what republicans wanted to do just he kept saying the quiet part loud. Now they are stuck. He is a result of decades of right wing talk radio and tv telling people everyone who disagrees is a satan worshipping pedophile. I fear he wont be the worst though
The funny thing is that I think BEFORE Trump, Democrats might have been to some degree susceptible to the same sort of willful blindness to an awful human being who nonetheless supported our policy agenda.
But now, having watched, with disgust, the moral corruption in the Republican party, Democrats are now hypersensitive to it. We have all become more self critical, and more righteous because we’ve seen what a slippery slope it is that the Republicans fell down.
By contrast, Republicans have so much (mostly figurative) blood on their hands that they can’t admit they were wrong about Trump. They can’t admit it to us, and they certainly can’t admit it to themselves. If they were to acknowledge the glaringly obvious facts about Trump’s criminality regarding the attempt to overthrow the election or his theft, mishandling, and cover-up of classified documents, that would mean admitting that Democrats were right about Trump all along.
It’s clear that Republicans would rather lobotomize themselves with Fox News than ever, ever, ever, admit to themselves that they’ve been the bad guys for years.
This is great news IMO
He’ll run on his own Freedom Party ticket and we’ll get a 3-party election. Oh no, now the rightwing votes are split. Bummer!
Much more likely at this point that he just wins the nomination. There is still time for that to change, but nothing that indicates that it will.
We all know they’re in Mississippi, but there are chapters in some good states, too.
He’ll run on his own Freedom Party ticket and we’ll get a 3-party election. Oh no, now the rightwing votes are split. Bummer!
Republicans are too spineless. Realistically trump will threaten to run third party, and they will forgo the primaries and hand him the nomination.
Isn’t that a little unconstitutional? I know that hasn’t stopped them in the past, but just straight up cancelling a vote of the people is more blatantly fascist than I’d expect from even them.
The political parties are private organizations. They can do whatever they want with their nomination process.
Then don’t let him debate. Why is this hard?
No one will tune in to the debates if Trump isn’t there and everyone knows it.
Because he is their most popular candidate and like we’ve seen from the failures of his copy cats he’s only one with a hold on the alt right voter base
Republicans don’t watch the debates, and literally cheered their candidates for ducking debates with democrats last election.
If they did watch debates, they would realize their candidates had zero platform worth voting for. The ones that do watch them are there for the drama, which this move also satisfies.
Trump is loyal to no one but himself. Even if he did sign it he would never honor it.
Honestly they should all refuse to sign it because the bastards should not agree to support the traitor Trump if he wins the nomination.
Trump believes he is going to lose the nomination. If he thought he was going to be the nominee, there wouldn’t be a problem signing the loyalty pledge. He believes the 3 or 4 other candidates he despises have a better chance at winning the nomination than he does.
My point is none of the other candidates should have agreed to sign it. It confirms they’ll support someone who tried to overthrow the government before they’ll vote Democrat.
And I’m not sure you’re right re: Trump’s motives. He wouldn’t agree to support the other candidates in 2016 either, and this time around I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran independent if he doesn’t get the nomination.
That’s what I don’t understand. Why doesn’t he sign it knowing full well he can just ignore that pledge once it becomes convenient to do so. Figured he would have learned that by now from his marriages.
I mean Trump is a pathological liar but he’s also got an ego the size of Texas. Signing the pledge would be, if only symbolically, ceding his free agency. He’d probably say something like:
What’s there to sign? I am the nominee. The rest of these knuckle heads just have a hard time admitting it. And frankly speaking I am the GOP when you think about it. The fact the RNC is too scared to put their money on me from the get go is a sign of weakness and this is why we’re having a hard time winning elections.
Wow, so the shit show begins even before we had even one gop debate. Article states you can’t participate if you don’t sign the pledge to support the eventual nominee.
This is going to be really interesting…
Where does this leave somebody like Chris Christie, who wants to debate, but has also been fervently outspoken against Trump. There’s no way he would support Trump should he become the nominee. Perhaps he has to just fade away at that point.
That photo of Ted Cruz phonebanking for Trump after Trump straight up insulted Cruz’s wife? That one photo was all I needed to know about the direction things were headed in for the Republicans.
