Unconventional #24: How the GOP could ‘Dump Trump’ in Cleveland (and more!)

(Photo: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

Unconventional is Yahoo News’ complete guide to what could be the craziest presidential conventions in decades. Here’s what you need to know today.

1. Step-by-step instructions: How the GOP could ‘Dump Trump’ in Cleveland

Do we think that the Republican Party will ditch presumptive nominee Donald Trump at its convention in July and select someone else to replace him — a notion that seems to be catching on among conservatives and commentators in the wake of Trump’s controversial remarks about the Mexican-American judge overseeing his Trump University suit?

No, we do not.

And yet, if there were ever an election weird and wild enough to make such a switcheroo possible — just barely — 2016 would be it.

Cleveland is a long way away. A lot can happen between now and then.

So what would have to happen to make “Dump Trump” a reality?

To give our fellow convention fanatics something to fantasize about for the next 40 days, Unconventional has assembled a step-by-step instruction manual for dumping Trump. If any of these steps are skipped, the whole chain reaction fizzles out. But if every one of them is completed, there is still a chance — a very, very slim chance — that Donald Trump won’t be competing against Hillary Clinton in fall.

Step One: Trump keeps saying offensive stuff

Trump has said plenty of objectionable things since launching his campaign last summer: the Mexicans-are-rapists thing, the John-McCain-isn’t-a-war-hero thing, the Muslims-should-be-barred-from-entering-the-U.S. thing, and so on.

But the Judge Curiel-can’t-do-his-job-because-he’s-of-Mexican descent thing is the first toxic thing that Trump has said since becoming the GOP’s presumptive nominee. The content may be similar, but the context is very different. Before, during the primaries, Republican leaders could brush off Trump’s remarks. He’s not my candidate, they could say. Maybe the voters will still reject him. And if not, he’ll probably grow up in time for the general.

Back then, Trump didn’t represent the GOP. Now he does. So now whenever Trump says something offensive, other Republicans have to choose: Do I defend this? Or do I denounce it? Hiding isn’t an option anymore.

As we’ve seen over the last week, the risk of guilt by association has dramatically lowered the GOP’s tolerance for Trump’s most distasteful remarks.

“ ‘Bigot, bigot, bigot. Racist. Racist Racist,’ ” said influential conservative talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt Wednesday, recapping the morning’s headlines. “The Republican National Committee needs to step in and step up, and go see Donald Trump and tell him to get out of the race.”

Hewitt’s alarmism aside, Trump can probably recover from a single Curiel-style controversy and regain Republican support. But if the sort of pattern he established as one of 17 primary candidates continues now that he’s the presumptive nominee — if this sort of incident happens again and again — more and more Republicans will decide that the only way they can salvage their own reputations is by distancing themselves from the guy at the top of the ticket.



By Andrew Romano.
Culled from Yahoo News.