April 21, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
39:03
3266 Donald Trump Takes NY: Ted Cruz Delegate Controversy Continues!
Following the Colorado Delegate Controversy, Ted Cruz received criticism for “stealing” delegates in Georgia disproportionate to his voter support in the state. Donald Trump has made claims that the Republican primary process is “rigged” by the establishment and is working to subvert the will of the people. Leading into the New York primary, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders supporters have complained about rules which hinder “insurgent” candidates to the benefit of establishment politicians. Will the Republican establishment be able to stop Donald Trump? What is Ted Cruz’s political future? Are the Republicans headed towards a contested convention? Does the primary prove that Donald Trump could never beat Hillary Clinton in New York during a general election? Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/trump-takes-nyFreedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
Hope you're doing well.
When I was a kid, maybe when you were a kid too, you were told, as I was told...
Got a problem with the system?
Well, just roll up your sleeves, get in there, vote, take a stand, make a change, work within the system to make your bliss manifest in the annals of human history.
Well, there are a few people out there trying to shake up the existing infrastructure, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and they're meeting just a little bit of resistance.
We talked about this in the...
Previous video that we did, the truth about the Colorado delegate controversy, which you should check out.
We're going to kind of pick up the thread from here and look at what is happening in this Republican delegate controversy as a whole.
So following the Colorado delegate controversy, Donald Trump published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
Quote, On Saturday, April 9th, Colorado had an, quote, election without voters.
Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred.
A planned vote had been canceled, and one million Republicans in Colorado were sidelined.
In recent days, something all too predictable has happened.
Politicians furiously defended the system.
These are the rules, we were told over and over again.
If the rules can be used to block Coloradans from voting on whether they want better trade deals or stronger borders or an end to special interest vote buying in Congress, well, that's just the system and we should embrace it.
Let me ask America a question.
How has the system been working out for you and your family?
Mr.
Cruz has toured the country bragging about his voterless victory in Colorado.
For a man who styles himself as a warrior against the establishment, you wouldn't know it from his list of donors and endorsers, you'd think he would be demanding a vote for Coloradans.
Instead, Mr.
Cruz is celebrating their disenfranchisement.
My campaign strategy is to win with the voters.
Ted Cruz's campaign strategy is to win despite them.
On Tuesday, Ted Cruz was interviewed by Sean Hannity about the delegate controversy, which has clearly had a negative impact on his campaign.
Sean Hannity said, I think the number one question on the minds of Republicans right now is what is going on with the delegates?
For example, if you can explain to people that your campaign, that you have every right within the rules to talk to delegates that are pledged on a first ballot to candidate A or candidate C, you being candidate B, And that, tell us what that process is.
You were assuming this is going to the convention.
By that he means a contested convention to continue.
You told me that in the last two interviews, so as part of that, you're hoping to get to a second ballot.
In other words, on a second ballot, people that support John Kasich or Donald Trump or Marco Rubio, if those delegates are still relevant, can then switch their votes.
So you are in a process of talking to delegates, and it seems to be very extensive.
Can you explain to people what's going on?
Ted Cruz said, Sean, with all respect, that's not what people are concerned about.
I'm campaigning every day.
People are concerned about bringing jobs back to America.
People are concerned about raising wages.
People are concerned about getting the federal government off the backs of small businesses.
And people are concerned about beating Hillary.
The media loves to obsess about process.
This process and the whining from the Trump campaign is all silly.
It's very, very simple.
Sean Hannity said, I'm on social media with millions of people.
I have 550 radio stations.
And I have the top rated cable in my hour all across the board.
And I'm telling you that people are telling me that they find this whole process confusing.
What actually happened in Georgia this weekend?
It is really important.
People would like to know how this works.
It is a process question.
It's an integrity of the election question.
And everybody's asking me this question.
So I want, I'm giving you an opportunity to explain it.
Ted Cruz said, Sean, the only people asking this question are the hardcore Donald Trump supporters.
Hannity said, Senator, why do you do this?
Every single time.
No, no, you've got to stop.
Every time I have you on the air and I ask a legitimate question, you try to throw this in my face.
I'm getting sick of it.
I've had you on more than any other candidate on radio and TV, so if I ask you, Senator, a legitimate question to explain to the audience, why don't you just answer it?
And Ted Cruz went on to avoid and obfuscate and go back to his talking points.
So either the process by which Ted Cruz is getting these delegates despite the wishes of the voters, either he doesn't understand the process himself, in which case I can understand why he wouldn't want to try and explain something he doesn't understand himself, or he understands it but isn't very proud of it, to put it mildly, which is also why he would dodge the question.
The argument is that he's really good at it, and Trump is really bad at it, and therefore Ted Cruz should be president.
It could be that Trump is really bad at it.
Not my first go-to position for a guy who's accumulated 10 billion quintillion dillion quill dollars, but it could be that he's really bad at it, or it could just be really good marketing, as in, if this game is corrupt, I don't want to play it, and I'm going to let everyone see how Ted Cruz would like to win elections despite the wishes of the voters.
In March, Donald Trump won almost 40% of the vote in the Georgia Republican primary, winning all but four counties in the entire state.
According to state rules, 42 of the delegates Trump received are bound to support him on the first ballot of the Republican National Convention.
So the goal, of course, for the people who are anti-Trump but still in the Republican Party, in other words, anti-a lot of Republican voters...
Is to get to a contested convention where the delegates who are bound, according to some of the state's rules, where the delegates are bound to vote for the people's choice after the first round, they can be liberated to vote for whoever they choose.
And that's when, of course, the other candidates are going to swoop in and try and get them to budge their vote.
CNN said Trump National Delegate Director Brian Jack said Private backroom nominations, committees producing recommended slates, county delegations voting in blocks, floor motions made for targeting our supporters.
This is the machine politics we read about in school, not the grassroots activism our campaign encourages.
Georgia Trump campaign senior data analyst Thomas Dean said, quote, I was speaking to someone in our third district and he said that they actually redid the committee and replaced the committee with Cruz members and then passed motions to replace the Trump delegates with Cruz delegates.
Within an hour, I knew this had happened all over the state of Georgia.
I am aware of instances in all 14 of our congressional districts.
This is not an isolated incident, he said.
I spoke to Jeannie Seaver, the grassroots coordinator on the Trump campaign.
She was kicked off being a delegate and replaced with an 18-year-old kid right out of high school because he was a Cruz supporter.
And there was nothing she could do because the committee was just banging their gavels, shutting down dissent.
Ted Cruz, Georgia.
Campaign Mailer said, Um...
Cruz is not Georgia, right?
I mean, so...
Pro-Trump delegate nominee Debbie Dooley said, quote, Once again, the Cruz campaign showed that they prefer the decision of who is the Republican nominee to be placed with Republican Party insiders instead of the millions of voters that go to the polls and vote in the Republican primary.
They demonstrated that they are more than willing to overturn elections in order to elect Ted Cruz president.
In Georgia, the Cruz campaign systematically worked to disenfranchise the 502,000 Georgians that cast their vote for Donald Trump on March the 1st.
Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger said, If the process was rigged, you would not have Ted Cruz and Donald Trump as the two frontrunners for the Republican Party right now.
It would be somebody else.
The rules are known and Donald Trump, basically all he brags about, being able to bring people together and make deals and all this stuff, he's unable to simply run for president.
He's running a strong campaign.
He's the frontrunner of the Republican Party.
I'm not going to take that away from him.
But don't whine when you don't get your way when you probably could have gone on the internet and figured out what the rules are in each of the states.
Well, that's kind of interesting what he says there.
He's pretty much strongly implying that, or if not downright stating, that the Republican Party...
Brass!
They don't want either Cruz or Trump.
And of course, they're going to try and aim for a contested convention where they can install whoever they want as their nominee for president.
This idea that, oh, well, you know, it's the rules.
So, hey, what can we do with the rules?
First of all, these are rules created by the Republican Party.
Second of all, we all recognize there are bad rules that decent people shouldn't follow.
You know, Jim Crow.
Hey, just the law.
You know, what about throwing blacks in the back of the bus?
Hey, just the law.
You know, what can we do?
Oh, Obamacare.
Well, the Supreme Court said it was okay.
Just the law.
No, you can still not approve of bad rules.
Donald Trump said, it's a rigged system.
It's a crooked system.
It's 100% crooked.
Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, quote, what we're talking about is millions of people who've turned out to support Donald Trump, and now they're saying potentially they're going to try and take this away from Donald Trump at a convention.
That's not what we're about.
We're supposed to be bringing the party together.
Well, Other than the people who are actually voting, Corey, Trump is uniting the party against the wishes of the Republican voters.
It's beautiful and horrible.
Mostly horrible.
Noted Cruz supporter and radio host Glenn Beck said, Look, I know this is a conspiracy theory, but you could make a great case that Donald Trump didn't expect to get this far, didn't expect to win, and now is actually sabotaging himself.
Because is this guy that incompetent?
I don't know, Glenn.
Your company's losing money.
You've got mass layoffs going on.
You're pouring your own money into things.
I don't know that self-sabotage might actually be Donald Trump's problem.
Might be a little bit closer.
Check your bathroom mirror for more.
And this idea that Trump has this giant Shakespearean flaw in his character that is causing him to self-detonate just when he's reaching the pinnacle of...
I don't know.
That's iambic fiction.
Chris Solitsa, Washington Post, said, quote...
Trump has taken to blaming his organizing failures on a rigged system, which is a good message for him, but fundamentally misses the mark.
The reason it's first ballot or bust for Trump is not because of a rigged system or poor organization, it's because of Donald Trump.
What Trump supporters love about Trump is the very thing that has narrowed his options to a first ballot win at the convention.
It was, given who Trump is, totally inevitable.
I don't know what that means any more than you does, or I suspect, any more than Chris Salica does.
Georgia Trump supporter Pam Houseman may have boiled it down a little bit more comprehensively when she said, Why are we voting if they don't listen to us?
New York has a closed primary system which prevents independents, libertarians, and unaffiliated voters from participating in selecting either the Republican or the Democratic presidential nominee.
This part really bothers me, so get ready.
So, voters registered with parties other than the Republicans or Democrats, and registered but unaffiliated voters were required to change their party status by October 9th, 2015.
Remember, way back then, before all the young ladies didn't wear their push-up bra nurse outfits on Halloween?
That is the earliest change of party deadline among the 11 states with a closed party system.
So, just to understand and put this in perspective.
So, October 9th, 2015, you were, if you were an independent, or you were supposed to, or, you know, libertarian or whatever, green...
You had to register either as a Republican or a Democrat in order to be able to vote for these presidential nominees.
This was very early on in the campaign.
How many Republican debates had there been?
Two.
Kind of early to tell.
Because if you didn't need more, why were there 6,000 more?
Plus, what were there?
12, 14, 16 nominees in the Republican debates.
So yeah, a little tough to narrow things down.
And at that point, October 9th, last year, you had to have chosen whether you were going to be interested in the Democrats.
Well, had there been any debates between the Democrats?
No!
Not one!
So that's when you had to choose way back before you had any chance to evaluate these people in a debate.
So, pretty gross.
So, over 3.2 million registered New York voters, or 16.2% of the state's population, were ineligible to participate in the recent closed primary elections as of October 10, 2015.
So, for previously unregistered voters, like people coming out of school, New York had a March 25, 2016 deadline for registration.
So, this is really, really important to understand.
3.2 million registered New York voters who weren't either Republicans or Democrats after October 9th couldn't vote as either Republicans or Democrats.
So what this means is that people who are interested in switching affiliations or interested in new fresh faces, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, new ideas, different ideas, couldn't participate.
It was for party hardliners or people who vote because that's how my poppy voted, rather than because they've actually listened to any of the candidates.
Because you couldn't really choose to go Republican or Democrat when you really heard from any of the candidates or had seen them under pressure or seen them on the media repeatedly.
Election Protection Hotline Manager Rosemarie Cluston said, quote, It's not new for this election, but unfortunately folks are trying to vote in this election, getting caught up by the law, and are not able to vote for the people they wanted to vote for in these primaries because of this.
On Election Day, New York State, 60% of New York residents were shut out from voting.
Only an estimated 40% of New Yorkers were eligible to vote in the presidential primaries on April 19th.
5.3 million registered Democrats could vote for Clinton or Sanders and 2.6 million Republicans could vote for Trump, Cruz or Kasich.
And that's crazy stuff.
People move and, you know, like it can get a little bit confusing, a bit complicated.
But dear God...
You show up, you've been following everything, and some states will allow you to register either way right on the day, but New York, nope!
It had to be months and months and months ago before the snows fell.
You had to register or off with you, surf!
Wretched, absolutely wretched.
And yeah, okay, people are really engaged, right?
Sanders and Trump have brought a lot of people Into the political process.
Hell, Donald Trump says he's creating jobs.
He's going to create jobs.
He's already creating jobs.
$15 an hour, you can get paid to come out and protest at his rallies.
Look at that.
Massive job creation already.
And they're just, people are not allowed in.
And yeah, the rules are a little bit arcane and complicated.
I get it.
Ah, wretched.
Common Cause New York Executive Director Susan Lerner said, quote, We think that there are going to be some number of people who are going to show up at polling places on April 19th expecting to be able to vote because they're registered, and they won't be able to.
People don't understand that they have to register very far in advance.
They'll think that New York, like other states, has same-day registration or an open primary, and we're not even close to open.
I like to say we have a closed-shut primary system.
Election Justice USA spokeswoman Shiloh Nelson said, quote, A closed primary under these circumstances definitely has an unfavorable impact on an insurgent candidate like Sanders or Trump, whose base is broader and more diverse than the Republican or Democratic Party itself.
Plus, 20% of Democrats say that they're interested in Trump, but unless they have a time machine, they can go back in time to view, I don't know, fossil gaps in the record and register as a Republican, well...
Sucks to your asthma, no luck.
Gotham Gazette wrote, quote, In the 1970s, a group of New Yorkers prohibited from voting in party primaries because they missed the date for switching parties challenged the New York deadline, which was then the same as it is now.
Two lower courts ruled that New York's enrollment deadline was unconstitutional.
But in 1973, the Supreme Court overturned the decision and upheld New York's primary procedure.
A disproportionate number of these disallowed voters would favor anti-establishment candidates like Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.
Hillary Clinton polled poorly among Democratic-leaning Independents, and Donald Trump has drawn strongly from Independents Democrats and new voters in previous open primaries.
It shouldn't be the case that voting means never being allowed to change your mind with new information.
Common Core's New York Executive Director Susie Lerner again said, quote, They don't see it as advantageous to have extraneous voters suddenly joining their party to suddenly vote in a primary.
They have the power base.
And what they seek to do is preserve their power base.
On Monday, April 18th, 2016, Election Justice USA filed an emergency lawsuit in Long Island Federal Court after many voters reported inconsistencies with their party affiliations or having been purged from the voter rolls.
Purged from the voter rolls.
So basically, the political system is treating them like alcohol in an over-drunk partier on a Saturday night, kind of emptying their contents on the sidewalk.
New York Post wrote, in a pre-primary bombshell, the city's board of elections was pummeled with questions Monday about how 54,000 Democratic voters vanished from the rolls in Brooklyn.
Now, of course, there are lots of people who vanish in Brooklyn, but at least they show up on eBay as parts.
Lawsuit.
Quote, plaintiffs are in imminent harm of losing their right to vote.
They have beseeched the various boards of education without result.
Nothing can save their right to vote save an order from this court.
Just try disenfranchising blacks or Mexicans or anything Hispanics.
Just try disenfranchising that kind of group of people and see what happens.
People would go mental.
Election Justice Attorney Blair Fellow said, quote, The Board of Elections, not voters, holds the voting records and should be responsible to prove a voter's ineligibility rather than putting this burden on the voter.
Right?
So you have to prove that you're eligible to vote.
And so basically you're guilty until proven innocent.
Remember, this is the Democratic Party that can't imagine having voter ID cards.
Shocking and appalling.
We must enfranchise everyone.
Crazy.
Blair Fellows said, quote, As it is currently structured, the statute places an onerous and excessive burden on the voter to prove their eligibility.
It requires securing a court order, which takes time that many New Yorkers simply don't have, as it means a loss of income over and above what they would lose by simply taking time off to vote.
And of course, how are you supposed to know ahead of time If you're not on the rolls, are you going to phone and wait in voicemail jail forever?
Who knows?
Election Justice USA spokeswoman Shaila Nelson, quote, We were seeing an alarming number of voter affiliations changed without people's knowledge or consent.
People who were registered listed as not registered.
We wanted to develop a response to voter suppression, issues at polling, the widespread problem at polls this election cycle.
So NYS Board of Elections spokesman Tom Connolly said, quote, A lot can happen in eight years as far as moving around, not being aware, and filling out forms.
They just have this in their head that they should be a certain way.
And when they find out that they're not, and it's too late to change it, they're usually pretty upset.
I understand that, but there's nothing I can do.
About changing the laws.
Okay, quick quiz, everyone.
Are you ready?
Now, let's say you owe the government, I don't know, let's say half a million dollars.
Do you think the government's going to be able to find you?
Oh no, says the IRS. Well, he moved.
I mean, we can't possibly find him.
He's no longer at the same address.
So when the government wants to find you, oh, they're pretty much going to find you.
No problem.
However, when the existing political structure doesn't want you to be found, well, It's bye-bye, Bertie.
He's like a ghost.
Can't possibly track him.
We need baby powder to invisible form him.
Bernie Sanders said, We have a system here in New York where independents can't get involved in the Democratic primary, where young people who have not previously registered and want to register today just can't do it.
So, Republican vote percentage.
Trump 60.4%.
Kasich 25.1%.
Cruz 14.5%.
Trump 523,000 and change.
Kasich just under 217,000.
Cruz 125,000 and change.
So from this process, Trump earned 89 delegates, Kasich got three, and Cruz received zero.
Now Ben Carson, actually in some places, Cruz lost to Ben Carson.
Ben Carson had specifically and repeatedly requested to be removed from the New York ballots because, of course, Carson has endorsed Trump.
And so if people aren't voting for Carson, the theory is, according to these guys, that they're going to go vote for Trump.
So Carson said, take me off the ballot, that way people will probably end up not voting for me but voting for Trump.
Some of the districts in New York still had Ben Carson physically on the ballot.
Alright, let's look at the results for the Democrats.
And we're going to look at Republicans from here on in, but Clinton, Hillary Clinton, got 57.9% of the vote, Sanders 42%.
Point one.
Clinton just over a million.
Sanders 758,000 and change.
So Clinton beat Sanders by 284,757 votes, earning 139 delegates to Sanders 106 delegates.
Hillary's percentage of co, of course, arguably, substantially arguably, artificially increased through the New York closed primary rules.
You know how it works?
Somebody's kind of new to the political scene.
I mean, Sanders has been a senator since Methuselah was young.
But when you've got people new to the political scene, they kind of hear a name for a while, they get interested, and then they start listening and so on.
But by then, of course, it's too late for them to register if they're not already Democrats.
So, yeah, that would be my guess.
So, some people have made this case, if you can believe it.
They say, aha, you see, Trump would automatically lose New York State to Hillary in the general election.
Look, she got more votes.
This, of course, ignores the basic fact that it was a closed primary with rules that favored establishment candidates and hindered insurgent candidates.
There are 5.3 million registered Democrats who could have voted for Clinton and 2.6 million Republicans who could have voted for Trump.
So it just seems so bizarre.
You know, there's one guy and then there's two guys.
But because the two guys weigh more than the one guy, the two guys must be both extremely fat.
It does not follow.
So let's normalize this.
By the percentage of vote within the respective primaries.
Because sure, if there are twice as many Democrats as there are Republicans, it's a little tough for the Republican to win, but let's normalize it by that.
So, normalized, Trump got 60.4% of the available vote and Clinton got 57.9% of it.
So Trump got a larger percentage of votes in the New York primary despite the rules which favor an establishment candidate like Clinton.
And the reality that Trump has two opponents and the ghost of Ben Carson.
Clinton had only one opponent.
So anybody who's making this argument as to why Trump can't win New York in a general election is either functionally, numerically illiterate and probably can't count to 20 without taking off their shoes or just plain dishonest and partisan.
Okay, now we're going to focus exclusively on the Republican race.
Thank you for allowing me this slight detour.
So, here's the popular vote as of April 20th, 2016.
Trump, a little over 8.7 million votes.
Cruz, just under 6.4 million, and Kasich, just over 3.1 million votes.
So, yeah, that's quite a lot.
Trump, just a little, well, cooking it around 2.5 million more than Cruz.
So, as far as the delegate counts go...
Let's have a look.
845 for Trump, 559 for Cruz, Rubio 171, Kasich 147, uncommitted 57, miscellaneous 16.
And there are 674 remaining, and to win without a contested convention, assuming that they don't move the goalpost, because they can change the rules the day before the convention if they want, you need to win 1,237.
The sources for all of this, as usual, will be below.
So, the delegates needed to reach the nomination.
Trump needs 392.
Cruz needs 678.
Kasich needs 1,090.
Why is that a problem for, I don't know, let's say two-thirds of the candidates?
Well, what percentage of the remaining delegates do you need to reach the nomination?
Well, Trump needs 58%.
After the remaining delegates, Cruz, oh dear, he needs 101%.
After the remaining delegates, Kasich needs 162%.
Of 162% of the remaining delegates.
So, again, I don't mean to bring all kinds of Einsteinian mathematics to the table, but Cruz has been mathematically eliminated from being nominated by the people in the primary process.
He can't possibly make it, even if every single person and their dog vote for him going forward, which of course isn't going to happen, because, you know, I'm pretty much sure dogs can only vote in New York if they registered by zero B.C., Now, remember, of course, Cruz don't discount his ability to, I don't know, wet finger the wind and grab people by the bells and LBJ-style breathe heavily in their faces and get them to change their vote.
He can, let's just say, beg, borrow, or steal delegates disproportionately to the primary vote through this state convention delegate nomination business.
So, according to the will of the people, Cruz can't win.
So...
So there's that.
Doesn't mean he won't, because the will of the people, well, it's not a force of nature.
It's not like gravity.
It's, you know, just what honorable people in a democratic process are supposed to follow.
So who remains up for grabs in the remaining Republican primary elections?
What delegates are there out there?
Well, Connecticut has 28 up for grabs, Delaware 16, Maryland 38, Pennsylvania 71, Rhode Island 19, Indiana 57, Nebraska 36, West Virginia 34.
Now, for those of you who wish to mark it on your calendar, On April 26th, the following states go to vote for the Republicans.
Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
May 3rd is Indiana.
Nebraska and West Virginia are May the 10th.
To continue, Indiana 57, Nebraska 36, West Virginia 34, Oregon 28, Washington 44, California 172, Montana 27, New Jersey 51, New Mexico 24, South Dakota 29.
So, Oregon is up for grabs on May 17th, Washington on May 24th, and on June the 7th, California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota 28.
So what is the likelihood of Donald Trump being the Republican presidential nominee and going up against Hillary Clinton?
Now remember Ted Cruz has said that Bill Clinton's past sexual assault allegations, to put it mildly, It won't be part of his attacks on Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump has made no such pledge, so he's not going into the fight with one hand tied behind his back and interns buried in the bushes.
So how likely is it?
Let's see what the polls say and what the people say.
It started off kind of 50-50 back in August of last year, and it's widened.
Of course, it narrows, widens again.
Narrowed a little bit, now it's widening again.
And so, on the 20th of August 2015, 49% said, eh, it's likely he's going to be the presidential nominee.
And 48% said, unlikely, as of the 14th of April 2016, 67% of those polled say that it's likely Donald Trump will be the Republican presidential nominee.
And 27% consider it Unlikely.
So that is a significant bump from half to over two-thirds.
So I have spoken very scathingly about voting in the past.
In my defense, all of the people who sought political office that I'd ever seen in the past or read about in history in general were bought and paid for by special interest groups, by the lobbyists, the corporations, the military-industrial complex.
They'd all...
Got their fingers on the strings of the candidates making them do the dance and pretend to represent the people's interests when they were simply getting the people's votes in order to sell the wealth and future and freedom and blood of the people to these special interest groups.
So, given that candidates that I'd always seen in the past specifically had and were controlled by special interest groups at the expense of the voters, there was good reason to not just be cynical but realistic.
About the fact that human beings respond to incentives and that everyone you could vote for was specifically against your particular interest in general.
So that was then, this is now.
I am always perfectly willing to be proven wrong by reason and evidence.
You're not much of a thinker if you hang on to your position even in the face of contrary evidence.
Donald Trump has come along.
He's self-funding his own campaign.
He is media savvy.
He is smashing down the last remaining rotting pillars of any public's trust and faith in the mainstream media in America now.
Trust and faith in the mainstream media sits at 6%.
6% still, 6% too high, but we're still working to help that number edge its way downwards so that we can actually have a rational conversation without the mainstream media screaming its Tourette's stuff into our faces.
So, this is a new phenomenon.
And when something unprecedented comes along, we must absorb the new information if we are to be honorable and decent and empirical and rational thinkers.
So here comes a guy, unbeholden to special interest groups, who's willing to do that which is unpopular, who's got enough media savvy to take on the mainstream media and repeatedly win.
That is remarkable.
That is unprecedented.
And frankly, that is fascinating.
So...
This is the test.
Everyone always said.
Don't like the system.
Don't like the system.
Get involved.
Get into the system and change it.
Okay.
This is the test.
This is the Rubicon.
This is where the rubber can meet the road.
Because he is a man striding in to want to change the system.
To address issues that Republican voters have been crying out to be addressed for decades.
Illegal.
Immigration.
Government control.
Government hyper-regulation.
The loss of jobs.
The catastrophic carving out of opportunities for the middle class, for everyone and anyone in America.
Massive national debts.
The fact that a third of Americans need permission from the government to get a job in their chosen profession.
Somebody's coming along saying, I'm going to deal with these things, and I'm not beholden to special interest groups funding my own campaign.
And I'm not afraid of the media.
I'm not afraid of saying that which is unpopular.
And he's winning.
Astonishing.
A-stonishing.
So here we see a man coming in to change the system, and here we see how the system fights back.
How the system fights back.
System is not a passive thing that you just go in and change, like putting on a new jacket.
It's like wearing a lion.
The lion may have something to say about it.
So, based upon the voting trends, this is how it works.
I'm going to assume that the people in charge of the Republican Party...
At least to some degree recognize that they might actually want to party in the future as well and may bow to Donald Trump.
If he gets close to the number of the 1237 that he needs, they'll just say, fine.
But if they ditch both Cruz and Trump and elevate somebody else, they're not going to have a party.
They're simply not going to have a party.
Then there's the addict and his wife says, you take one more drink, I'm leaving you, one drink, out she goes.
So if the will of the people in the Republican Party is respected, Trump's going to win the nomination.
And if Trump doesn't win the nomination, well, that's not patricide, which is killing your father, but particide, where you kill your political party, because that will be it for the Republican Party.
Not just for a couple of years, not just for a generation, that will be it, in my opinion, for the Republican Party.
So we are witnessing somebody coming in and trying to change the system who has more resources and savvy and charisma and speaking ability and sense of humor and support.
You can't design somebody better able to come in and change the system than Donald Trump.
