There are five good reasons why Donald Trump should not quit the race.
The first is technical. Most states use paper ballots, either they are counted by hand or fed into scanners. Those ballots have been printed. All states uses paper ballots for absentee voting. Absentee ballots are already being distributed (and have been for weeks).
The second is a matter of electoral fairness. For both absentee voters and voters in states that allow early voting, the election is, in fact, under way. They've made their choices based on who is on the ballot. It would be an unprecedented bait-and-switch for Trump to drop out.
The third is notice to the voters of who are the candidates. If Trump drops out, then another vice-presidential candidate would have to be chosen. There is no mechanism for that, and likely, the choice wouldn't be made until after the election. The voters have the right to evaluate the candidates and make their choices; Trump dropping out would say to the voters "trust us, we're going to pick a decent man."
And trust whom, exactly? The Republican party elites? Their views were soundly rejected by the party's voters in the primary contest. If the opinions of the party elites mattered to the GOP base, the number of Trump voters would've not filled up a short bus.
Which brings me to reason #4: Trump received over 13 million votes in the primaries, which were the most ever for a GOP candidate.
The "will of the people" is one of those concepts that politicians speak of in glowing terms and then disregard at the drop of a hat. Trump's flaws were well-known to anyone who had bothered to look and yet, the GOP voters chose him. They turned their collective backs on the party elites and the professional pols and chose Trump, a completely untested amateur, as their guy. You can bet that most of those voters will look on a Trump resignation as his having been pushed out by the party, a penultimate backstabbing by the pros.
And then to tell those thirteen million Trump voters that they're supposed to turn out for a clown that wasn't even running in the primaries? Good luck with that.
The last is Donald Trump. While he might be able to accept being defeated as either evidence that he couldn't close the deal or console himself with conspiracy theories about how Hillary Clinton conned the voters or whatnot, there's no such consolation to be had should he drop out. Dropping out is Donald Trump having to acknowledge that he's a loser. He would have to essentially fire himself. He would be a self-admitted failure. That would be a reversal of his entire personality.
Besides, all you have to do is look at the Right's reaction, which is "Bill Clinton was worse". Expect to hear a lot of that from The Donald.
Spanks, But No Spanks
1 hour ago
3 comments:
I don't know why anyone would think Drumpf would quit.
The leadership and elected officials of the Republican party have been headed to this point since embracing the Christian right back in the day. Allowing the talk show dogs to attack with no disavowal, and allowing religion to affect government, has led the party here.
The Democrat's problems are entirely different. But neither party gives a rat's ass about any of us.
(Those who believe HRC cares about you are wrong.)
From a legal perspective, the fact that the ballots have been printed is irrelevant. We The People don't elect Presidents. The Electoral College elects Presidents. All that We The People do is vote for electors pledged to vote for their party's nominee, whoever said party's nominee may be. The name printed on the ballot is irrelevant, other than it says who the party's nominee was at the time the ballot was printed. What you're actually voting for is a slate of electors, not a candidate.
That aside, this is strictly an intellectual exercise at this point. Deadbeat Donnie isn't going to step aside, and while it would technically legal for the RNC to call an emergency session to change the rules to allow them to replace Trump as the party's nominee (not necessarily with Pence, BTW -- Pence could stay on as VP), from a practical point of view it would be futile, for all the reasons you've listed -- it'd totally turn off the Trump voters and they'd stay home in droves, dooming not only the replacement for Trump, but all the downticket Republicans too.
So they're stuck with Trump. My guess is that they're turning their resources to trying to help some of the downticket candidates, because Trump is a lost cause.
As for HIllary, her legislative history was virtually identical to Bernie Sanders and she has a history of fighting for causes that benefit the downtrodden. She isn't the candidate I wanted -- the fact that she also has a history of cozying up to Wall Street is enough to guarantee that -- but I'm not going to have to hold my breath to vote for her. Even if she's a repeat of the business-friendly nightmare of peace and prosperity that was the first Clinton administration, that's hardly grounds to go around claiming that she'll destroy America yada yada. Her husband didn't, after all. He "merely" had the first balanced budget since Eisenhower while at the same time presiding over the greatest growth in the economy and in family income since LBJ. Who would be against that?!
Bad Tux: Who would be against that? Those thirteen million people mentioned above. Zillions of pixels have been spilled trying to explain why that is, but nevertheless they still vote the way they do. A Clinton could be trying to hand them a fire extinguisher in a house fire and they would roast while whining about how evil they are.
Trump couldn't quit if he wanted to, just like he can't admit he is ever wrong. He still thinks the Central Park Five are guilty. I know she wasn't talking about Trump when she said it, but irredeemable is an apt word to describe him.
-Doug in Oakland
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