CLEVELAND, Ohio — Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump will complete his nationalist populist takeover of the Republican Party—a hostile one—here this week at the Republican National Convention.
The convention, which kicks off this morning, is sure to be filled with Trump’s style. Trump, his wife Melania, and children Donald, Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany, will each speak throughout the week. The themes of the party’s convention this year—normally a coronation for a run-of-the-mill ordinary Republican—will be anything but ordinary. Over each day will loom a Trumpian-phrased theme, like Monday’s “Make America Safe Again” or Tuesday’s “Make America Work Again.” Wednesday will be “Make America First Again” day, and on Thursday Republicans will celebrate the goal to “Make America One Again.”
Outsiders like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Dr. Ben Carson and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn will be heralded and celebrated here, while crony-type D.C. insiders like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney—the failed 2012 GOP nominee—and failed 2008 GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will be nowhere to be found.
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Lobbyists aren’t welcome around the convention, and typical D.C. power-brokers are running as far away from Trump as possible. Trump, who has campaigned aggressively against these insiders, doesn’t want them here anyway. He even, just this week, called himself “so outside of the establishment” when he introduced his vice president.
“Lobbyists typically act as the Republican Party elders at political conventions, ensuring that the program runs smoothly and coordinating many of the festivities surrounding the official events,” the Wall Street Journal, the Republican Party’s premier insider publication, wrote at the beginning of July. “This year, many of them are opting out of the Cleveland event later this month, both because they haven’t been tapped to raise money for the campaign and because some of their clients have expressed concern about funding a convention with Mr. Trump at the top of the ticket.”
Newspapers across the country have detailed how Republicans expect an “unconventional” convention.
“Republicans – some happy, some horrified – will gather here starting Monday to officially sanction Donald J. Trump’s hostile takeover of their party,” the Buffalo News’ Robert McCarthy and Jerry Zremski filed from Cleveland. “That being the case, while they call it the Republican National Convention, there will be little conventional about it. Sure, a made-for-TV program will aim to show the United States that the Republican candidate is a better choice than the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But beyond that, this will be as unconventional a convention as the candidate himself, a developer-turned-reality TV star who captured the nomination in part by making promises – like building a wall at the Mexican border and rewriting free-trade agreements – that upend decades of GOP dogma.”
Pennsylvania’s PennLive’s Charles Thompson wrote that this will be a “different kind of convention.”
“Republican supporters of Donald J. Trump boarded a bus for Cleveland, and a trip into an uncharted political future, Sunday,” Thompson wrote. “These delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention find themselves at the tip of the spear of a populist movement fueled by frustration with traditional politics and a willingness to give an outside-the-establishment guy who has ‘built things’ – not the least of which is his own brand – a try.”
Trump vanquished 16 foes during the Republican primaries over the past several months since the beginning of the year—in a battle that started here about a year ago at the first debate—dominating news cycles with a completely abnormal campaign since then.
“Donald was able to tap into a real sentiment that’s out there and he won the primary — the voters chose him,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), one such downed rival, told the New York Daily News. “It’s an unusual year. The country at large is going through a rapid economic dislocation and transformation.”
more: http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/07/17/fear-loathing-cleveland-donald-trump-completes-nationalist-populist-takeover-gop-republican-national-convention/