How Trump Could be Blocked

Below is a list of tactics that establishment Republicans may use to block the nomination of Donald Trump. Yes, I know.

If they succeed they will not win the White House, but many in the establishment will make just as much money under a Democratic insider as they will with a Republican insider. So they may not care.

Mostly they want to send a message to any future "outsider" candidate, "This is our party. If you try to do this without us we will destroy you."

These tactics were used in 2012 to keep libertarian insurgents from winning delegates to the Republican National Convention. What was at stake in 2012? Power and money.

What's at stake now? Power and money.

But why will low level party stalwarts who don't get that money play along and do the bidding of the big party leaders?

To keep their positions as State, County or Precinct Chairmen. Power. Ego. Prestige. They want that trip to the RNC. Booze. Free corporate gifts.


Here's what the new Trump supporters can expect:

• The other candidates will cooperate with each other to help block Trump outsiders at key county and state conventions. There is nothing wrong with this. You may have most of the delegates at the local event and still lose to this combination. Make your own deals with chairmen and other party officials before it’s too late.

• The RNC Rules Committee will likely change the rules back to a five state requirement needed to put a name in nomination at the Convention. This will make it easier to nominate others. Trump operatives should block this change and keep it at eight.

• Make sure that you have your own people chosen as delegates to the convention. The insiders will fight you over this, saying that it doesn't matter, that you won the primary or the caucus and so the actual delegates are bound by law to vote for you anyway. Keep in mind, the only “law” that bind the delegates are the rules of the party and those very delegates can change those rules.

• The place of the caucus that selects the delegates who go to the district or state convention may change without your knowledge. Linked by a telephone chain the insiders will meet without you.

• Likewise, the time of the meeting may suddenly change. Hundreds can show up and find that the building is locked and your people will not be allowed in.

• The chairman may say, The Ayes have it. Even if they don't. This happens at the precinct, county, district, state and even national level.

• Off duty police may arrest and detain your newly elected Donald Trump GOP officers. Your people may be kept for hours in jail cells.

• Caucus leaders may charge a last-minute tax. No money, no vote. This happened in 2012 in Alaska and Washington. They also turned away young people who did not appear on their outdated voter registration lists.

• If the Caucus chairman is replaced they may suddenly declare the process invalid. For example, they may say that the new chairman is a Trump partisan and thus it is now a Trump event and the GOP insurance for the event is invalid and thus the meeting is ended.

• State conventions will prepare ballots misspelling Trump and then later discount them in the voting for those pledged delegates.

• Fake ballots will be distributed listing establishment names as the official Trump delegates, confusing the voters. They may also try to split the Trump slate by nominating competing slates with real names.

• Counting the ballots at the various caucuses will be an exhausting business with delays, postponements, and the voting boxes taken home for the night with seals found broken the next day.

• They may cancel the voting due to weather in a key precinct that is heavily Trump, throwing the state. Even though the weather turns out to be fine in the given precinct.

• At convention you may find hotel rooms canceled. They may arrange for the bus bringing your delegates to the Rules Committee to get lost and changes to RNC rules may happen in your absence.

• When you leave the RNC don’t think it's over. A Ron Paul delegate was detained by TSA at the airport leaving Tampa when bullets were found in their packed luggage.

All of these things were alleged in 2012. They may happen again. Here is the message. It doesn't belong to you. As in the case of the Democratic Party, it belongs to the insiders, the rich, and powerful who make money from a rigged economy that favors a few at the expense of the many.

Donald Trump is too independent and too unpredictable for them.

Doug Wead is a presidential historian who served as a senior adviser to the Ron Paul presidential campaign. He is a New York Times best-selling author, philanthropist, and adviser to two presidents, including President George H.W. Bush, with whom he co-authored the book "Man of Integrity." Read more reports from Doug Wead — Click Here Now.