For a considerable time before the GOP convention, NeverTrump Republicans vowed to find a way to deprive Donald Trump of the party’s nomination, despite his domination of the primaries. Rumored plans involved liberating delegates to “vote their consciences” on the first ballot, rather than being bound to primary and caucus winners, i.e., Trump. This never made sense to me. Trump won fair and square, he won by a large margin, and he won going away. There was never any reason to think that a majority of the delegates had any desire to abandon the candidate who dominated the primaries and caucuses.
On the convention’s first day, the NeverTrumpers made a little noise, petitioning for a calling of the roll on the convention’s rules. That effort was headed off, and since then, if there are significant numbers of anti-Trump delegates in the hall, I haven’t been seeing them. NeverTrump ended with a whimper.
Similarly, far-left groups have been promising massive disruption of the Cleveland convention, to protest the nomination of the “Nazi” Donald Trump. This, too, hasn’t come to pass: “Anti-Trump Organizers Ask: Where Is Everyone?”
Cleveland has seen far smaller protests than those at other recent conventions, despite the nomination of Donald Trump eliciting a rage from progressives that rivals or exceeds their hatred of former President George W. Bush. In a further distinction, it has also seen very few activism-related arrests. …
[Code Pink’s Alli] McCracken says she’s not sure why relatively few people showed up to protest in Cleveland, but she believes many were scared off by Ohio’s open carry laws, which allow people to carry firearms — despite the ban on tennis balls and aluminum cans — near the convention.
Heh. Another advantage of open carry!
Communist protesters complained that there are too many police in the vicinity of the convention. This is my favorite whine:
[Kris Hermes, a veteran political activist who is serving as spokesman for Ohio’s chapter of the National Lawyers Guild] says even if police aren’t arresting people, their presence can be objectionable.
“If you are in downtown Cleveland you can literally throw a rock and hit a police [officer]. It’s very intimidating,” he says. “It certainly is chilling for First Amendment rights.”
Is he saying that Communists have a constitutional right to be able to throw rocks in a crowd without hitting a policeman? Well, who knows? Give Hillary four years to mold the Court, and throwing rocks at Republicans, and policemen too, might be a protected activity.
I don’t know whether any conclusions can be drawn from the failure of widely-predicted anti-Trump activity to materialize, but I do think the relatively boring march to the nomination that we are seeing in Cleveland is good for Trump and for the party.
PAUL adds: After John wrote this post, a one-man anti-Trump effort materialized in the unlikely form of of Ted Cruz.
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