With Donald Trump’s most recent prediction—or threat?—that his supporters will riot if he isn’t nominated at July’s GOP Convention in Cleveland, the relationship between Convention rules and democratic norms has taken center political stage.
If Trump amasses 1237 delegates—a majority—before or at the Convention, he will be nominated. But what if he has a tough or impossible time getting to that number? Does democracy require that other candidates give up because Trump has won a plurality—but not a majority—of delegates, states, and votes cast? I think not.
You don’t need to be as smart as Aristotle to know that democracy means rule by the majority—not the plurality. Somebody who is the choice of a plurality has the inside track to put together a majority, but no moral right to demand that others who disagree or dislike him do it for him. This, in fact, is the history of American Conventions.
Up through 1932 and Franklin Roosevelt’s first nomination, the Democrats required that the winning Convention candidates amass, not a simple majority, but two thirds of the delegates voting. This may not have been exactly democratic, but it produced some results that the Democrats later took pride in like Woodrow Wilson’s nomination in 1912 after he was second to House Speaker Champ Clark on the first ballot. Clark gained votes—Tammany Hall switched to him—and a simple majority on the ninth ballot. But former nominee William Jennings Bryan checkmated Tammany by endorsing Wilson who was finally nominated on the 46th ballot!
Even if Trump has a small majority of delegates going to Cleveland, there is no reason why candidates with a principled opposition to his candidacy—certainly Cruse and maybe Kasich—should not insist on their names being put in nomination so that they can make their case to the Convention and the nation. I would ague they have a moral obligation to do so.
Trump may—almost certainly will—still be nominated, but a deliberative democratic process will have been upheld. Those non- and anti-Trump delegates who can rationalize supporting him as nominee because of party regularity, will do so. Those who can’t because of principled opposition, shouldn’t—and won’t.
This is how democracy works to protect individual and minority rights as well as majority rule. American Jews should recognize their vested interest in this version of the democratic process.
The U.S. does not need the equivalent of the Republican National Committee or Convention Rules Committee to assume the role of the Prophet Samuel and coronate Donald Trump as our King Saul. The Bible first presents Saul to us unsuccessfully chasing his family's donkeys before Samuel chooses to annoint him. No need for another King Saul who can't locate his own ass on a map.
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