Mr. Trump:
Given that you’re a lifelong Democrat, it’s hardly surprising that you think you’re entitled to the Republican nomination by virtue of having won a plurality – but not a majority – of the votes. You probably had no idea that in the Republican Party no one is entitled to anything they didn’t earn. And under the rules that have governed selecting the presidential nominee since this party’s founding in 1854, the nominee is chosen by a majority of the delegate votes at the national convention.
Yeah, I know. You’re “The Donald,” or “Mr. Trump.” You’re the Chosen One whose destiny to become the Republican nominee for president is so ordained by the gods that if you are not so anointed, rules be damned, there will be “rioting in the streets.” But in this party it just doesn’t work that way.
In the Republican Party, the ultimate victor needs a majority of the delegate votes because that’s how we ensure that the nominee has a mandate to represent our party. Nominating a candidate like you who has only plurality support – you have never won a majority of the vote in any state – could result in the party being represented by someone like you who is opposed by a majority of the party. After all, roughly two-thirds of Republican voters have voted against you this year.
Yeah, I know, you could say that an even greater number voted against Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, et al. But that would be ignoring that you and the establishment “news” media have framed this year’s nominating contest specifically as a referendum on you, The Donald, Mr. Trump. Many voters who voted for someone other than Cruz would have voted for him as an alternative if their preferred candidate had dropped out. Same with those who voted for someone other than Kasich, Rubio, and the others. But hardly any voters who voted for someone other than you, Mr. Trump, would have voted for you as an alternative. Almost everyone who voted for another candidate was at the same time intentionally and consciously voting against you.
So, if you arrive at the Republican National Convention with less than the 1,237 committed delegates that constitute a majority, then the fact will be that a majority of the party will have expressed it’s desire that you, The Donald, Mr. Trump, not be the nominee. And in a Republican Party that follows its rules, it is that majority that will be “entitled” to have their wish respected, not you and the minority who support you.
So, Mr. Trump, if you fail to win the nomination because you failed to win the votes of a majority of the delegates – which now appears to be the likely outcome – whoever does win the nomination will be the rightful and legitimate representative of the Republican Party.
If you wanted to have the nomination bestowed upon you as an entitlement, you should have run in your own Democrat Party and employed the strategy of their current front-runner of buying off their “superdelegates.” But you chose to try to con Republicans into thinking you were one of us. And under the well-established rules of this party, it looks like your con is going to be about as successful as Trump University and Trump Water were.
Oh, and you can be sure the Cleveland Police Department will be ready for your rioters.
