The GOP Is STILL Not A Political Party

 It’s a nomination delivery device:

Trump's 2024 insurance policy: How for the past two years -- but really the past six -- he and his team have bent the state parties to their will. w @ShaneGoldmacher @maggieNYT . Here's a gift link for non NYT subscribers to read for free:

Sorry, you’ll have to go to the tweet to get the gift link. I left that language in for my own bona fides.

Ironically, this is why the primary system supplanted conventions and smoke/filled rooms. The primary was a reform that took the power out of the hands of a few and gave it to the people.

And now we’ve got this.

Not that conventions are gonna come roaring back and save us from ourselves. But except for the vestige of political parties basically owning access to ballots in all 50 states, what does the GOP do for anyone? And that advantage only serves to get 1 of 2 presidential candidates elected every four years.

Anybody else see another reason all the emphasis on governing has shifted from Art. 1 to Art. 2? Even though the powers in those 2 articles haven’t been fundamentally redistributed.

There’s a reason people think Trump got done what he says he got done: it’s the most important office in the federal government, isn’t it? We all act like it is.

Because we made primaries so important.

Conventions did pick nominees in smoke-filled rooms. But they also set the platform for the party’s actions for the next four years. They picked nominees for federal and state offices besides POTUS. And they gave the parties a sense of being and unified (sort of) purpose. Now that sense of party being is supplied by the internet and ideologues and cable TeeVee cranks. Which, despite their proliferation on the right, is not really working anymore.

Leaving the Democrats the only real political party in D.C. And pretty much the country.