The American Dictatorship
Eric Zuesse
Washingtonsblog.com
April 14, 2016
Even for the post of U.S. President, the preferences of the American people have only a marginal, if any, impact upon the selection of the person to occupy that post.
In Colorado’s Republican race to win delegates to the Republican National Convention for selecting the Republican Presidential nominee, there was no primary, and there was no caucus. As the Republican magazine National Review headlined on April 11th, attempting to justify what a Republican wag had just headlined as “Cruz Celebrates Voterless Win”: “Donald Trump Laid a Colorado Goose Egg because He Was Disorganized and Amateurish.” Their argument (since they campaign for any Republican but Trump) was: he lost “because he was disorganized and amateurish” — not because he had been cheated by the Party-hierarchy.
National Review explained that, in the process which had been set up by the Colorado Republican Party (it’s set up by each individual state’s Republican Party, not by the National Republican Party), “delegates to the national convention would be selected at congressional-district conventions and the Republican’s state convention” [NR’s illiterate writer there meant “the Republicans’ state convention” and couldn’t distinguish between “Republican’s” and “Republicans’,” so used the wrong one], and this was done in order to “give Colorado’s delegates more flexibility,” not done in order to require delegates to reflect the Republican (or any other) electorate in Colorado (since NR doesn’t like even its own Party’s electorate).
This was the explanation that was provided by that magazine, which backs Cruz, and which has been campaigning ferociously against Trump. Their article was built upon, and extensively quoted, the justifications put forth by one particular Cruz delegate, who said, “The grassroots made the decision that Ted Cruz was the best candidate for us, and the grassroots made the decision to come out for Cruz and absolutely swept the table.” He called it “our caucus system.” Whatever it was, it shut out all rank-and-file Republican voters, and left everything to people like himself, who could afford to do this: “You have to put in the work, you have to put in the effort, and you have to do it months ahead of time.” In other words: only Republican Party activists in Colorado could participate in selecting the delegates who would participate in selecting the Republican nominee. No one else was allowed to. Their conception of the Colorado Republican Party is that it’s only the Party’s activists; and, if you’re not a Republican activist, you have no say. It’s as if to say: Only people who work in the government can have a say in how the government is to be run. It’s for insiders only — and, of course, indirectly it’s for whomever pays those insiders and so enables them to “put in the work” to participate.
The Rest…HERE
