You may have seen that dozens of prominent Republicans are circulating a petition calling on the Republican National Committee to cut funding for Donald Trump’s campaign and divert it to saving increasingly vulnerable House and Senate Republicans. The list of signatories includes nearly twenty former employees of the RNC which signals that the Establishment is completely hostile to Trump’s campaign and that the petition will no doubt have plenty of saliency and resonance with the current Republican National Committee staff.
Compare this situation to a few highly placed DNC staff sending emails that demonstrate a bias in favor of Hillary Clinton.
More than that, though, since two wrongs don’t make a right, consider how rank-and-file Trump-supporting Republicans must feel about this blatant lobbying of the RNC by former RNC staffers to sabotage Trump’s campaign.
I know Trump is a dangerous lunatic but he did get a lot of votes. In fact, he exceeded 13 million votes in the primaries which really is the most in history. He may hype that accomplishment a little more than is warranted (e.g., he received a smaller percentage of the popular vote than Bush, McCain or Romney), but it’s nothing to be sneezed at. There are 13 million voters who cast a vote for Trump and most of them are probably still hoping that he can win the presidency. Almost all of them probably like Trump more than the people who are pushing this petition or the current RNC chairman, Reince Priebus.
I guess what I’m saying is that it makes a little bit of sense to devote RNC resources to candidates who have a better chance of winning than Trump, but it’s not some kind of magic way to fix the Republicans’ problems. It will split the party and really piss off its most energized voters. Whatever the GOP gains by allocating resources a little more sensibly will be lost by cratering turnout.
Imagine if Sanders had won the nomination, was trailing badly in the polls, and a bunch of Establishment Dems and former DNC members were calling for Sanders to be abandoned in favor of more mainstream House and Senate candidates. It wouldn’t make things any better and would most likely make things worse.
I don’t give these petitioners and signatories a whole lot of credit for opposing Trump since they’re primarily concerned about preserving the power of the Republican Party, but I acknowledge that they’re taking a stand against Trumpism. The problem is that Trumpism is what’s for dinner with the Republican base.
There’s no getting around that.
