Republican voters nominated Donald Trump. That’s the conventional wisdom.
Certainly, many Republicans—disappointingly, in my view—voted for Trump. But there may be more to Trump's shocking rise to the top of the GOP ticket in 2016.
Trump has bragged that he pulled in a lot of Democrat voters during the primaries. This is certainly plausible. While NJ has a traditional primary, at least 20 states feature open primaries “in which voters can take part in either the Democratic or Republican nominating contests regardless of their party affiliation.”
I consider open primary voting a corruption of the party system. I don’t know the extent to which the primary process was corrupted by “open primary” voting. But given this corruption, it’s entirely possible that Democrats handed Trump the nomination.
Even in states like NJ, where a Democrat would have to re-register as a Republican 55 days before the election to vote for Trump, many Democrats may have done just that. After all, the Star-Ledger itself actually called on Democrats to Switch parties now, and fight Trump in the NJ primary. Different reason to switch, of course. But how many switched to vote for, rather than against, Trump?
It would be interesting to know just how much of a hand Democrats had in nominating Trump. Two polls indicate that between 8 and 15 percent of Trump’s voters were former Obama voters. Enough to put him over the top?
Related Reading:
Independent Voters are Independent for a Reason
1 comment:
It's up to political parties, which are private organizations, to decide whether or not to corrupt their ideas by, for example, deciding to have their primaries open or traditional. Does government have any business in such a decision? May (and I do mean, may, not might) a government establish legislation saying your primary must be open, or traditional? No.
Regarding elections, primary or general, government may, indeed, MUST, impose rules only upon itself that it seeks an elected candidate who will at least maintain the status quo of proper functions of government as per the present state of knowledge of enforcing individual rights. That's the product governments advertise, and which candidates should advertise, for purchase thru elections. False candidates must be rejected, even if they are 'elected' by the people. Further action for resolution must be taken, by law.
Government, properly speaking, can contra-man the people. The people, in all their 'great wisdom', can be outa their gourds. There are, and/or always will be those who know and want better, who can't be hogtied by a culture of lunatics just because of 'elections' when a lunatic gets 'elected'. If both, or all, candidates are lunatics, then government must act as per the proper product it advertises and get a proper candidate in office, or WITHHOLD ITS SERVICES and let crime take over by street rules and street justice. Or those who know better can take matters into their own hands. TOUGH for everybody else.
That's what our Founding Fathers did. They didn't act on a poll, election or ratification of the Decl. of Indep. then go home and tend to their knittin' under the Crown when a majority of the electorate out of 3 million said, No. Even if they went thru those histrionics, they just wrote the Declaration and acted on it anyway. SAME WITH THE CONSTITUTION, even with its defects.
I might run on here. But this comment is as long as your short posting. I quit, for now.
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