The tranquility project, advanced on behalf of the “fall in line” faction, is not going terribly well.
One week ago, Republicans, worn out by it all, pulled the plug on their ongoing primary project, pleading malaise, fatigue and mental exhaustion, and the need to lie down for a month in a nice quiet setting, with soft music playing, and a damp cloth of sorts over their heads.
Give in, they thought, and all would be calm. People, of course, would line up behind the front-runner, who would in the process be normalized, and act for the first time in his life like a sane human being. Above all, they would have a “quiet” convention, (which meant a convention in which nothing happened), which meant they gave in to the threats of Trump’s people, who had been quite direct in their threats of the violence they both seem to encourage and then attract from all opposite quarters, and seemed wholly prepared to inflict.
Instead, they are getting still more upheaval, even more bluster, and even more soundbites on which Democrats will be running. In short, it is what they deserve.
The idea was that by simply saying so they could enforce unity behind an extremely divisive plurality candidate who showers abuse on all comers, and that people would accept him as their leader because, sooner or later, everyone does. But sooner or later everyone doesn’t, depending on persons, and the times.
Sometimes people swallow hard and accept a front-runner; sometimes they join him and run on a unity ticket; sometimes, there are blood feuds that go on for years. Reagan’s challenge to Gerald Ford in l976 and Ted Kennedy’s to Jimmy Carter years later were acts of open hostility to two sitting presidents, done in the names of their different agendas, to save which they considered the loss to their parties of one term in the White House an acceptable price to have paid.
And in 1964 and 1972, Republicans and then Democrats found themselves with nominees who, though decent as people, had ideas that seemed borderline crazy on serious issues, and tacitly withdrew their support. The Republicans’ situation in 2016 seems like l964,1972, 1976 and l980 put together (not exactly our happiest electoral run as a nation); with the craziness factor increased by a zillion, and personal decency out of the question. The idea that they could produce peace and order by wishing and fiat was quite simply not in the cards.
And as for the peaceful convention they thought they were having? They were so afraid of a contested convention that went beyond the first ballot, and involved charges of plots about tricks played with delegates, but nobody thought about what might happen if the delegates thought about tricking themselves. “The delegates could vote to change the convention rules even BEFORE the first round of balloting,” as Jim Geraghty quotes Rachel Stockman. “In the days leading up to the convention, the RNC Rules Committee could recommend rules changes to the Convention Rules Committee.” That committee could send the rules to the floor for a vote by the delegates. “If the delegates vote to change the rules so as to ‘unbind’ themselves, then they could vote for whoever they wanted even in that first round.” And why shouldn’t they want to, if the polls show Trump tanking, and opening up thrilling new prospects for Hillary in red/purple states?
Imagine the chaos if such a thing happens. And they’ll have brought it on all by themselves.
Noemie Emery, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”
