The rich eat themselves.

The conventional wisdom says that after Trump secures the delegates needed the GOP will, despite what some of them have been saying, line up behind him in support rather than trying any fuckery during the convention. It's a safe bet to make usually but I wonder if we are repeating the mistakes every pundit, commentator, and serious person with an opinion has made this entire election season, conventional wisdom means Trump wouldn't have lasted until the debates, and JEB! would be the nominee in all but name by now. That hasn't happened and there really is no reason why we should expect things to change at this point.

I've said before that the rich are not like you and I, they don't think about things, especially money, like the rest of us do, and have no real knowledge or concern about the problems the average person has, and I wonder how many of the donor class is thinking about conventional wisdom or the good of the party these days, I mean, the money people rarely consider long term benefits even for themselves, why would they think about it for a group that include other people? Maybe even poor people?

The rise of SuperPACs has made it easier than ever to buy a politician, but the problem with that during presidential elections that no one really saw coming is that apparently the folks buying candidates aren't all buying into the same guy, which leads to competition, and we don't consider that those who buy candidates might also be buying party elites as well, there is a network of donations, lobbies, and pork that each involved billionaire has and their influence in the halls of government is not exclusively their chosen candidate, over 200 million million dollars have been spent by SuperPACs so far this election cycle, but all these guys want return on their investment, which means none of them are willing to give up and support another candidate, they stay in, throwing good money after bad in the hopes that their chosen machine will finally pay out. And when they finally listen to their accountant's screams all they really did was ensure that either a completely uncontrollable outsider or literally the most hated man in American politics gets the nomination. And yes, they are two different people.

So I sorta feel like at this point the GOP establishment players might want to just suck it up and deal with Trump being the nominee, but as I have mentioned before, the establishment players aren't in control of this ride and haven't really been since 2008, though it has taken some of the other factions a while to fully realize this.

So the question isn't "Can McConnel, Priebus, and Co. keep a handle on their party?" It is actually "Will the people like the Koch brothers let them?" The answer to that may not really be all that straightforward, or rather, it might be more straightforward than you would think.

I don't think the wealthy donors are working towards a master plan, like I alluded to earlier we should probably think of them more like gamblers, bad ones, they put so much money into the machine already that they think it has to pay out eventually, but they are playing against a house that is rigged, and what's so dumb about this is that they built the damn thing themselves!

There have been rumbles from party officials that the fix might be in at the convention, some even argue that no rules changes need be made because delegates can vote however they want on the first ballot anyhow, now this opinion is in the minority, and probably wrong, the specific person cited in the article I just linked is a known crazy person, but still a party official. And he isn't the only one talking about the screwjob.

It would destroy the Republican party utterly, the base already doesn't trust the leadership and having their wises blatantly ignored would completely gut their support and likely cause a split into at least two, more likely three, parties, this would be completely disastrous for the GOP agenda with regards to financial reform specifically and even the most casual observer can see that. But remember the very rich aren't like you and I, most of them cannot conceive of a world where the voter doesn't do as they are told, like, they honestly can't understand how those of us down on the bottom can be mad about constant abuse of the system, broken promises, and crushed dreams, to them problems of day to day survival don't really exist and they can't understand how other people don't have the resources to ignore problems.

It's a problem with both sides of course, but we are talking about the Republicans at the moment, the Democrats are probably eight to sixteen years away from a similar crisis in the party but it's coming, oh yes.

Anyway, the GOP base is almost willfully ignorant and horrifying in its racism and stupidity, their willingness to line up behind someone who actively courts the white power movement is all the evidence you need of that, but their anger isn't wrong, it's directed mostly at the wrong targets like they have been programmed to do, but a large and growing number are seeing the establishment leaders and donor class for what they are, an enemy of anybody who is not rich.

Am I saying that Trump would be good for the nation? Fuck no, he would at the very least ruin us economically and at worst get us into multiple new wars, but the anger in his base is partially the same anger as in Sanders' crowd, and I don't know if it can be stopped, the Sanders crew will mostly end up content(ish) to vote for Clinton should she secure the nomination, the Trump crowd... won't go down so easily, Trump himself has said there might be riots if he losses the nomination, and if you don't see that as both a threat and a promise I don't know what to tell you.

For once, the ultra rich are going to destroy something that deserves destroying, and I couldn't be happier about it.

There's a lesson about capitalism self destructing here I am sure, but I can't be bothered to expand onit.