Donald Trump is very unhappy. He's so unhappy he's taken to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal with a rant titled "Let Me Ask America a Question: How has the ‘system’ been working out for you and your family? No wonder voters demand change." Because, as everyone knows, the readers of the Wall Street Journal have totally been screwed by the "system."
In recent days, something all too predictable has happened: Politicians furiously defended the system. "These are the rules," we were told over and over again. If the "rules" can be used to block Coloradans from voting on whether they want better trade deals, or stronger borders, or an end to special-interest vote-buying in Congress—well, that’s just the system and we should embrace it.
Let me ask America a question: How has the "system" been working out for you and your family?
Yes, it's the fault of the "system" that Trump's campaign couldn't have been bothered to find out what the rules were for delegate selection in Colorado. But Trump isn't going to miss the opportunity to conflate his team's screw up into a rallying cry for faux populism: "The political insiders have had their way for a long time. Let 2016 be remembered as the year the American people finally got theirs."
Meanwhile, the RNC is firing back pointing out that it's not their fault the Trump campaign is disorganized and clueless.
The party fought back Friday morning in a memo, arguing that the system is democratic, even if voters don’t directly elect delegates to the convention.
"It ultimately falls on the campaigns to be up to speed on these delegate rules," RNC chief strategist and communications director Sean Spicer wrote. "Campaigns have to know when absentee ballots are due, how long early voting lasts in certain states, or the deadlines for voter registration; the delegate rules are no different. Whether delegates are awarded through a primary, caucus, or convention, this process is democracy in action and driven by grassroots voters across the country."
But that's the system keeping the people down!!! It's, in Trump's words, a "dirty trick" to have rules that campaigns have to follow. The people are pretty darned riled up, too, if the responses to this tweet from RNC Chair Reince Priebus are any indication. Which gives Trump all the encouragement he needs to take this all the way to the convention and to a third-party run, during which he can rail about how the fact that he's missed deadlines for getting on ballots is the system keeping him down. Fun times ahead for the GOP!