Dumping Trump is nearly impossible, even if the GOP wants to do it. It\u2019s not a complicated legal question, it\u2019s a straightforward fact. No amount of posturing will erase the disaster the Republican Party has brought upon itself. If they wanted to try, here\u2019s what they\u2019d have to do:<\/p>\n
First, the RNC must comply with its own rules to change its nominee. Those rules authorize the RNC to \u201cfill any and all vacancies which may occur by reason of death, declination, or otherwise\u201d through a convention or through a vote of \u201ccommittee members.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although his candidacy may be the death knell for the Republican Party, Trump is still very much alive and he has stated his unwillingness to withdraw. That only leaves the word \u201cotherwise\u201d as the basis to remove him as the nominee. Numerous election law experts have pointed out the vagueness of this provision\u00a0and expressed doubt that the RNC could successfully remove Trump this way.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s not forget that Trump has built his public persona on nasty fights, and has a long history of vicious litigation with his opponents. Less than 24 hours passed after the insincerely delivered apology his campaign scripted for him before he was defiantly tweeting his intention — in all caps, of course — to never drop out of the race.<\/p>\n
A legal fight with Trump will be ugly and expensive, burning through precious time and resources that conservatives need to protect America from another Clinton White House. Second, assuming the RNC successfully votes to replace Trump as its nominee and fends off legal challenges from Trump and his friends within the Republican Party, the RNC still cannot replace Trump on the ballot. Ballot access deadlines \u2013 and even write-in deadlines in important states like Texas \u2013 have long since passed. Military and overseas absentee ballots have already been sent. Tens of thousands of Americans have already voted in some states.<\/p>\n
Thus, swapping Trump for someone more palatable at this late date simply cannot happen. Trump is on the ballot as the nominee of the Republican Party. He will remain there.<\/p>\n
We will provide additional legal analysis of the difficulties of removing Trump to interested parties.<\/p>\n
The Political Realities<\/strong><\/p>\n As outlined above, the legal challenges to the fantasy of a Trump\/Pence swap are considerable, even if Trump were amenable to such a decision, which he most certainly is not. The political challenges are also daunting and will have enormous negative consequences to the people who think they’re saving the GOP. Here are a few reasons why:<\/p>\n The Washington Establishment Has Lost Political and Moral Authority<\/strong><\/p>\n In their haste to avoid their own political and moral culpability for supporting Trump, the usual suspects in Washington are proposing this absurd swap. They hope that opposing him now, after over a year of silence and assent will result in a different outcome this November. Trump’s outrageous insults to POWS, the disabled, Hispanics, Muslims, women, African Americans, and veterans suffering from PTSD have already done deep, lasting, and perhaps catastrophic damage to the Republican brand. Republicans have spent years fighting the Left\u2019s attempts to portray them all as racist, misogynist, uncaring, selfish, crony capitalist fat cats, and then the party nominated someone who is a brash caricature of the worst extremes of these traits.<\/p>\n Unsatisfied with insulting the vulnerable, Trump added attacks on the very principles upon which America was founded to his repertoire. And as Trump shredded every principle of conservatism, openly boasted he would violate the Constitution, and praised authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, official Washington looked the other way.<\/p>\n Republican leaders in Washington squandered their opportunity. They stood silently by as Trump overtly appealed to racial politics, embraced alt-right white supremacists, and degraded women time and time again.<\/p>\n The time to oppose Trump was in the beginning of this process, not the end.<\/p>\n Trump Won’t Go Without A Fight<\/strong><\/p>\n Let’s be clear; Donald Trump’s ego,\u00a0narcissism\u00a0and authoritarian tendencies have been fed by the roar of a hundred crowded rallies. The spotlight is more addictive to Trump than any drug, and stepping back from the top of the ticket means Trump is a loser, left in the dark as Mike Pence takes the stage.<\/p>\n Does anyone in Washington seriously believe Trump will relinquish it without a legal, political or media fight? Trump’s erratic behavior would then be unmediated by Kellyanne Conway, or any other campaign professional, and his revenge for being supplanted will shatter the party.<\/p>\n Mike Pence Validated Trump and Inherits Trump’s Liabilities<\/strong><\/p>\n Mike Pence spent the last three months as Donald Trump’s most stalwart defender. He validated Trump’s record, served as an ambassador to undecided Republicans and\u00a0toed\u00a0the Trump line to voters,\u00a0donors\u00a0and the media. He was watched by millions of Americans just this week trying to defend Donald Trump’s personal and moral character during the Vice Presidential debate, adopting the same kind of reality-denial language Donald Trump has used over and over again.<\/p>\n If the Washington Establishment Deposes Trump, Prepare for Revolt<\/strong><\/p>\n The fanatic devotion to Donald Trump by his voters has always been his secret weapon. A large measure of that devotion is predicated on their burning hatred for the dreaded “Washington Establishment.” Elected officials and RNC insiders pushing to swap Trump for Pence haven’t even begun to contemplate the reaction from the\u00a0core of Trump’s base that a plan to depose him would entail. The RNC, members of the House and Senate and establishment Republicans are the very people they hate more passionately than anyone except Hillary Clinton. The Washington Establishment taking Trump off the ticket will lead to his base in full, open and vicious revolt.<\/p>\n By:\u00a0Joel Searby<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dumping Trump is nearly impossible, even if the GOP wants to do it. It\u2019s not a complicated legal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","darknews-slider-full":"","darknews-featured":"","darknews-medium":"","darknews-medium-square":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"Government<\/a>","tag_info":"Government","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4802,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions\/4802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}