The Stench of a Contested Convention

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Robert Ringer

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For months now, the hottest political topic by far has been the phenomenon of a “contested convention” in the Republican Party. Most people are baffled, because their instinctual sense of fairness tells them that whoever gets the most votes — whether it’s for queen of the high school prom, captain of the football team, or politics — is the winner. Period.

In other words, they don’t think in terms of caveats, special rules, or manipulation of the vote totals. To the average guy, a win is a win. People don’t have time to learn the intricacies of the complicated game of delegate maneuvering.

I’d be willing to bet that before this whole brouhaha began, most people had no idea that someone other than the candidate with the most votes could be handpicked by a small number of party insiders.

The boys in the back room are now coming out into the open and talking in belligerent tones as they explain to the public how the system is designed to work and why this primary season is no different than any other. They tell us that the party leaders have always had the power to change the rules at any time, including at the nominating convention, so it’s no big deal. Business as usual, as they like to say in Washington.

Their explanations are supposed to comfort us, but, without realizing it, when they make it clear that delegates who have been won by Candidate X can be nabbed by Candidate Y at the convention … that someone who dropped out of the race long ago could still be chosen as the nominee … or that someone who didn’t even bother to run at all could be selected as the party’s nominee, it only succeeds in revving up voter anger.

The deep-seated cause of their anger is that when insiders talk like this, they’re so arrogant that they don’t even realize they are actually admitting that the entire system is corrupt — as in, rotten to the core.

They openly admit, for example, that they invented Rule 40 (the “Ron Paul rule”) in 2012, the purpose of which was to keep Ron Paul from having any say-so at the convention. This year, of course, they will have to change Rule 40 because it would shut out John Kasich, not to mention other establishment guys who have already dropped out of the race or didn’t even bother to run.

The bottom line is that the system is rigged to allow a handful of good old boys to keep out boat rockers like Ron Paul, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump and sneak in the John McCains, Marco Rubios, and Mitt Romneys via the back door — even if millions of Republican voters resoundingly reject the latter types.

In other words, the problem is the system itself — a system that makes the votes of millions of people all but irrelevant by simply changing the rules of the game at any time. Government by the people means government by the people — no equivocations, no exceptions, no caveats, no “buts.”

Now that this contested-convention sewage is out in the open for all to see, I believe that the only solution is for the Republican Party to be completely dismantled and replaced by a party that respects two things unequivocally: the Constitution and the will of the majority. Majority rule is still tyranny, to be sure, but minority rule is tyranny times a hundred.

I am deeply concerned that if Republicans and independents don’t take bold steps this year to form a third party, they may never again have the opportunity to do so. Literally, this might be a case of now or never.

I didn’t even bother to mention the Democratic Party, because it’s a whole different animal. In simple terms, it is now a Marxist-driven party that openly lies, steals, cheats, and deceives Americans 365 days a year — and has the arrogance and self-assuredness to taunt them while doing so. The only hope to crush them out of existence is the emergence of a new and very angry third party.

In other words, forming a third party could be a twofer, killing off both wings of the Demopublican Party in one election. I say, bring it on.

Robert Ringer

Robert Ringer is an American icon whose unique insights into life have helped millions of readers worldwide. He is also the author of two New York Times #1 bestselling books, both of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.