We forget, and some people perhaps just don't understand, that political parties are not compelled to be democratic. They are free to make their own rules about the method of choosing delegates and nominating candidates. In the old days, it was done in "smoke-filled backrooms" by the party bosses, who made deals.
Later that was modified by giving certain party officials and elected office-holders a vote as "super delegates," who are not bound by obligation to vote based on primaries or caucuses. This allows "the establishment" to "put its finger on the scale" at the convention.
The Democrats have modified this, giving more weight to the pledged delegates chosen by the people and reducing the influence of the super-delegates. Interestingly, the Republicans have gone further and eliminated most super-delegates except for a much smaller number (I think they're all party officials). So the voice of the people has more weight in their party.
How can you fail to guarantee "one man, one vote" in a democracy? Well, remember that the political parties are not part of the government. But how is this not disenfranching the voters? Simple. The primaries are not elections; it's all a way of choosing delegates according to that party's rules. If you don't like it, go join another party. Or start a new one.
"The Party Still Decides" is a must-read, eloquent article in Sunday's New York Times by the conservative columnist Ross Douthat.
* * *
". . . Americans
speak and think in the language of democracy, and so these arguments
[for having a "right" to the nomination if you go into the convention with the most delegates] will find an audience, including among party leaders and delegates
themselves.
"But
they cut against the deeper wisdom of the American political tradition.
The less-than-democratic side of party nominations is a virtue of our
system, not a flaw, and it has often been a necessary check on the
passions . . . that mass democracy constantly
threatens to unleash. [Douthat then draws a distinction between stopping a demogogue and accepting "politically disastrous nominees" like Barry Goldwater or George McGovern.]
"Goldwater and McGovern were both men of principle and experience and civic virtue, leading factions that had not yet come to full maturity. This made them political losers; it did not make them demagogues.
"Goldwater and McGovern were both men of principle and experience and civic virtue, leading factions that had not yet come to full maturity. This made them political losers; it did not make them demagogues.
"Trump,
though, is cut from a very different cloth. He’s an authoritarian, not
an ideologue, and his antecedents aren’t Goldwater or McGovern; they’re
figures like George Wallace and Huey Long. . . . No modern political party
has nominated a candidate like this; no serious political party ever
should. . . .
"Denying [Trump] the nomination would indeed be an ugly exercise, one that would weaken or crush the party’s general election chances, and leave the G.O.P. with a long hard climb back up to unity and health.
"But if that exercise is painful, it’s also the correct path to choose. A man so transparently unfit for office should not be placed before the American people as a candidate for president under any kind of imprimatur save his own. And there is no point in even having a party apparatus, no point in all those chairmen and state conventions and delegate rosters, if they cannot be mobilized to prevent 35 percent of the Republican primary electorate from imposing a Trump nomination on the party.
"What Trump has demonstrated is that in our present cultural environment, and in the Republican Party’s present state of bankruptcy, the first lines of defense against a demagogue no longer hold. Because he’s loud and rich and famous, because he’s run his campaign like a reality TV show, because he’s horribly compelling and, yes, sometimes even right, Trump has come this far without many endorsements or institutional support, without much in the way of a normal organization, clearing hurdle after hurdle where people expected him to fall.
"But the party’s convention rules, in all their anachronistic, undemocratic and highly-negotiable intricacy, are also a line of defense, also a hurdle, also a place where a man unfit for office can be turned aside.
"Denying [Trump] the nomination would indeed be an ugly exercise, one that would weaken or crush the party’s general election chances, and leave the G.O.P. with a long hard climb back up to unity and health.
"But if that exercise is painful, it’s also the correct path to choose. A man so transparently unfit for office should not be placed before the American people as a candidate for president under any kind of imprimatur save his own. And there is no point in even having a party apparatus, no point in all those chairmen and state conventions and delegate rosters, if they cannot be mobilized to prevent 35 percent of the Republican primary electorate from imposing a Trump nomination on the party.
"What Trump has demonstrated is that in our present cultural environment, and in the Republican Party’s present state of bankruptcy, the first lines of defense against a demagogue no longer hold. Because he’s loud and rich and famous, because he’s run his campaign like a reality TV show, because he’s horribly compelling and, yes, sometimes even right, Trump has come this far without many endorsements or institutional support, without much in the way of a normal organization, clearing hurdle after hurdle where people expected him to fall.
"But the party’s convention rules, in all their anachronistic, undemocratic and highly-negotiable intricacy, are also a line of defense, also a hurdle, also a place where a man unfit for office can be turned aside.
"So
in Cleveland this summer, the men and women of the Republican Party may
face a straightforward choice: Betray the large minority of Republicans
who cast their votes for Trump, or betray their obligations to their
country.
"For a party proud of its patriotism, the choice should not be hard."
"For a party proud of its patriotism, the choice should not be hard."
* * *
Let me emphasize: Ross Douthat is a Republican journalist who, in my opinion, has written an eloquent Republican rationale for denying his party's nomination to a man so clearly unfit for the job.
I hope the party leaders listen. They should have a right to stop its seal of approval from being given to someone not only unfit, but perhaps dangerous to the nation . . . from being given to someone about whom they cannot honestly say: "The Republican Party sponsors this man to be the next president of the United States."
Ralph
I hope the party leaders listen. They should have a right to stop its seal of approval from being given to someone not only unfit, but perhaps dangerous to the nation . . . from being given to someone about whom they cannot honestly say: "The Republican Party sponsors this man to be the next president of the United States."
Ralph
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