Reports are emerging this morning that Trump will go ahead and sign the RNC’s pledge to support the GOP nominee. No indy or third party run. At least that’s the pledge. And why not sign it? A pledge to Reince Priebus will not bind Trump or prevent him from mounting his own general election campaign if that’s what Trump later decides to do.
So what does the RNC get out of this? Not only “not much,” but this is perfect for Trump and terrible for the RNC.
If the RNC’s play was to avoid a third party or indy run, call me skeptical that this will be effective in preventing it. And if the short term play was to expose Trump as not a loyal Republican, then Trump just flipped the script on that, too. It takes the loyalty issue off the table for the debate, for the other candidates, and for the RNC itself.
A third party run would be disastrous for the GOP, yes. But at this point that has to be a lesser order concern. Between now and the general, Trump is poised to unravel the party orthodoxy on a slew of issues the GOP has spent decades building a tight coalition around.
To the extent Trump is professing any loyalty at all it is to the party’s nominating process, not to the array of conservative policy positions and world views that collectively define the modern GOP. That is where Trump poses the biggest threat to Republicans, and Priebus is happily letting Trump nose his way into the tent. Or to put it in business terms, Trump is engaging in a hostile takeover of the GOP.
