I've not made the point in a long time, so here goes ....
There is no point in turning "the RNC" into a bogeyman. The national Republican Party umbrella organization is confederational in nature. The RNC (as an actual body, as opposed to a generic term of abuse) has three members -- the State Chairman, National Committeeman, and National Committeewoman -- from each of the state and territorial parties. These folks assemble as a group a few times a year (two, four?), electing an executive committee and a national chairman to run the day to day operation.
The state parties run most of their stuff themselves. The county parties are largely automoous within their counties. The national body is necessary to do a few things for which a national body is required: run a national convention every four years to select (when conventions still did the selecting) or ratify (in our modern primary dominated system) the national presidential nominee.
This structure is established under the rules adopted by the Republican National Convention, which is the ultimate governing body of the party assembled.
If you do not like the chairman of the RNC, take it up with your state chairman, national committeeman and national committeewoman. They're the ones who elected him.
If you think your three state delegates to the RNC are GOPe, take it up with your county chairman and local activists. Every one of the delegates is elected by his state party. Here we do it in the Republican primary. I assume methods vary around the country; some may do it in the state conventions or caucuses. But the point is, they are all ELECTED. Ultimately, by US.
Such a system gives the Republican Party of Rhode Island organizational power at the confederational level equivalent to the Republican Party of Texas. That is probably the root of the complaint. Perhaps we should have a rules change to significantly expand the RNC and weight representation according to each state's Republican turnout. I'm open to that discussion.
The point is, we are not a top-down, Leninist party, with the national committee dictating orders to the rank and file. We are a confederational party, with a leadership elected by US. A lot of the people doing the complaining need to stop complaining and start paying attention to who is elected, and when.
Who is this “we” you speak of?
You seem to think that the gop is somehow fixable, somehow reformable, somehow redeemable. It is not. The gop is a cancer. You don’t bargain with cancer. You don’t negotiate with cancer. You get chemo. Or it kills you.
sphinx, you are spot on with these comments.
My mom was active in county politics, and passed that on to me.
When I was 19 I went to my first Young Republicans meeting.
I didn’t recognize the people I saw there. Guys wearing $500 blazers, and $300 loafers. I was from a working class family. My dad retired from the City.
You’ve heard the expression “Turd in the Punchbowl”, well that was exactly what I was to these people. Needless to say I didn’t go to many more of these meetings.”
My friends and I loved Reagan, but if I had invited any of them to one of these soirees there would have been a fight.
These were the people they bussed into our school so they would have more blacks at theirs.
After I got older, I wanted to try again.
County Republican meeting. I was the only male there, and between 30-50 years younger than everyone else.
They were much more welcoming, but I felt weird going to any meeting with that many older women, and arguing with them by myself felt like I was beating up someones Granny.
I’ll bet most of these people sceaming for the death of the Republican Party can’t name the chairman of their county Republicans, much less ever have gone to a meeting to try and change the direction of the party.
All politics are local, and it doesn’t matter whether the GOP dies, or what it’s replaced with if no one else gets involved at that level , then the outcome will be the same.