The Republican party platform is shaping up to be one of the most right-wing in the history of the party. Tierney Sneed writes that in past years, the nominee and party establishment tried to curb the excesses pushed by the base so that the party could appeal to at least some moderate voters in the general election.
This year, the nominee’s delegates seemed to not care that much about the platform and as a result the extremist base, led by Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach, pretty much had an open field to run through.
Seth Meyers looks at the planning for the GOP convention, its speakers, and platform.
Well, if I was a cynic, I would suggest that the Republican old guard were doing two things. One -Give Trump such a bad policy platform that he is humiliated at the election, they then say look what happens when you nominate an outsider. Two-this platform is what you wanted, it got us humiliated at the election, perhaps the nation doesn’t agree with you and we need to compromise.
But, as I am a real cynic I belive that the Republicans really belive this is a winning platform and are just politically incompetent
This platform is a winning platform for the GOP -- at the state, district, and local levels. And winning at those levels gives them a lot of real power over peoples’ lives.
I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the GOP doesn’t care that much about who’s in the White House. If they did, a non-insane candidate like John Kasich wouldn’t have done as poorly in the primaries as he did. On the non-social issues, a center-right Democrat is just as good as a Republican, and they don’t really care that much about the social issues.
Can those in charge of the GOP really be so blind as to think that these policies are going to win the favor of enough moderate/swing voters nationally to be successful at that level? I think it’s just ideological purity at this point; they must be aware of the demographics and likely consequences at this point, and they simply don’t care.
To G. Priddy
IMHO, the Republican elite masters are not all powerful, were surprised by Trump, didn’t consider him a sufficient threat early enough to act to stop him in time, and now they have no options. There are limits to how quickly and how much they can manipulate the common Republican voter, and there are limits to how much fraud they can do in primary elections. I really do think that the elite found the social wedge issues useful for getting votes, but now the public that they have created have become uncontrollable, a horrible accident in the eyes of the Republican elite.
PS: On the bright side in the eyes of the Republican elite, apparently the Republican voter will still vote for literally anyone, as long as they don’t have a (D) next to their name. The Republican elite still have that going for them.