Posted on 07/08/2024 10:03:07 AM PDT by Morgana
The fireworks launched Thursday are expected to continue in at least one city — Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As Republican delegates descend on the site of the GOP convention this week, some have come ready for a fight. The news that Donald Trump’s team wants to “simplify” the 60-page platform isn’t sitting well with longtime conservatives who believe the document is the party’s anchor to core values. “Presidential candidates come and go,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pointed out, but the platform “is foundational.” “There’s no reason to change it. Let’s stick with what got us here.”
Veterans of the platform debate, including Bill Gibbin — who drafted eight of the last 10 GOP documents — are increasingly troubled by what they see from the former president’s senior aides. Pointing to the secrecy with which this platform is set to be drafted, Gibbin wrote ominously in National Review, “Unfortunately, the 2024 GOP platform process is a throwback to 1972, when the Nixon White House, in its imperial-presidency phase, micromanaged everything. But even then, Nixon didn’t treat the delegates as if they were in a witness-protection program.”
Gibbin goes on to point to the history of the platform and its significance in assuring Donald Trump’s election. “The 2016 Trump campaign’s involvement with the platform text consisted of one meeting at the RNC for his representative, John Mashburn, to read the draft. He suggested two small deletions. Many would argue that the remainder of the document helped the candidate win in November by appealing to Evangelicals and others wary of his earlier behavior — an example of winning by policy commitments rather than personality.” At the end of the day, he insists, “For guidance on ensuring a good Republican platform, look to the past.” In other words, resist Trump’s pressure to “streamline.”
Like so many other Republican leaders watching the events in Milwaukee with concern, Senator Graham warns that radically changing the platform takes away an important, motivating contrast with Democrats for voters. “You try to say, ‘Here’s who I am as a Republican.’ And let’s talk about the life issue,” which, as most media outlets have pointed out, is the greatest source of contention for the party. “For over 40 years, we have stated as a platform, as a doctrine of faith, that an unborn child is a member of the human family and deserving protection under the 14th Amendment. … Democrats basically would allow abortion up to the moment of birth. They think the unborn child is a blob of cells. We believe it to be a member of the human family that is foundational to who we are,” he insisted to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a delegate at the convention, on Friday’s “Washington Watch.”
Graham pointed to the near-dozen GOP governors who won reelection in 2022 after signing strong pro-life protections. Despite the Left trying to “demagogue the abortion issue,” he said, “they won.” “So the narrative that being pro-life hurts you politically is a false narrative perpetrated by the liberal media, who wants us to be ashamed or afraid of embracing pro-life policies. ... If you listen to the chattering class, the gun issue and the life issue hurts us. It does not. … We’re going to be in a world of hurt if we don’t stick with the pro-life community. We’re going to be in a world of hurt,” he repeated.
The South Carolinian used his own reelection campaign as an example why. “People give me money, and I appreciate it,” Graham said. “I raised $112 million in my last race, the highest in the history of the Senate, except my opponent, who raised $132 million. We had money from all over the country, $5 and $10, a bunch of money coming in. You know what got me elected by over 10 points? It [was] people who knocked on doors and made phone calls on my behalf, the people who believe in the sanctity of life … the activists. All the people who write these [big] checks,” the ones, he claims who think social issues hurt the GOP, “are not going to make one phone call, and they’re not knocking on one door.”
“Do not be ashamed of being pro-life,” Graham urged. “It is a responsible position to take. It is a position the American people will understand if you advocate it right. If you look scared and you act scared, you will lose no matter what the issue is. So be not afraid. Be pro-life.”
Perkins, who this week launched a major effort, the Platform Integrity Project, to safeguard the language of the GOP’s guiding document, strongly agreed. “We’ve heard this slogan ‘Making America Great Again,’” he told Graham. “But for the United States to be great again, we must first be good morally. We must have a moral foundation. So this platform must address issues like the sanctity of human life to defend the most vulnerable, the family, religious freedom — those things that are fundamental to a strong and prosperous nation.”
He also pointed to 2022 as a perfect example of what can happen when Republicans are “confident in who we are and we can defend the positions we have.” Ultimately, it “expose[s] the weakness in the policy positions of others,” he underscored, and “we win.” “The Democrats are the ones who have the extreme positions,” Perkins reminded everyone. “And when that is exposed, abortion up until the moment of birth at taxpayers’ expense, the American people get it.”
Another thing to remember, Graham emphasized, is that this will never be “just a states’ rights issue.” For one, the Left doesn’t treat it that way. “The Democratic Party is hell-bent on nationalizing the abortion issue [by] shutting down every pro-life law in every state, federalizing abortion rights so that you can have an abortion. Literally, late-term abortions will be legal. There’ll be no limits. All the exceptions consume the rule there. They want to create a national law allowing abortion-on-demand in all 50 states up to the moment of birth.”
Exactly, Perkins said. “So just so people are clear on this, it is only one party and an element of one party talking about this being strictly a state issue.” And it’s important for Americans to know, Graham chimed in, “Democrats are saying they want to [not only codify] Roe. … They go well beyond that. The law they introduced — we voted on it — goes well beyond what the Roe standard was. What are we trying to do?” he asked. “We’re trying to take it from the courts to elected officials.” But that includes elected federal officials, Graham argued.
“I support President Trump,” the senator said. “I want him to win. I’m going to help him [by doing] everything I can. He believes this is a states’ rights issue. He talks about the downside, the [horror] of late-term abortions. What I think we should be doing is saying, ‘Yes, it is a state issue, but it’s also about the child itself.’ So what I want to do is not change our platform,” which carves out specific roles for Congress in defending life. “If we change our platform and we buy into the narrative [that] being pro-life is bad politics … we’re going to be net losers, because the people who believe like we do are going to abandon us because we’ve abandoned what makes us different.”
Linda, he’s on the other team.
How long do these creeps have to hang around ...take your tomahawk missile money and get lost Linda.
FU Linda. Ignore this punk. He’s nothing but scheming little rat saboteur.
Linda and platform in the same sentence!!! Lolololol!!!
Everyone ignores ‘the platform’ after the convention anyhow... isn’t it a ‘bean counter’ type of document? Then again, Trump should be able to add to and subtract from in some incremental ways...
If the GOP makes it about abortion,women will carry the corpse over the finish line. Keeping it simple with border, economy and law and order is the key.
There is no need to include abortion. That issue has been relegated to the states.
LOL 😂
I have to agree with Lindsey on the pro-life issue.
The only issue is populism.
Drain the Swamp. Eradicate elites.
There Is No Other Issue.
If you want elites to stay, you are GOPe and can talk about other things.
The Tariff
We reaffirm our belief in the protective tariff to extend needed protection to our productive industries. We believe in protection as a national policy, with due and equal regard to all sections and to all classes. It is only by adherence to such a policy that the well being of the consumers can be safeguarded that there can be assured to American agriculture, to American labor and to American manufacturers a return to perpetrate American standards of life. A protective tariff is designed to support the high American economic level of life for the average family and to prevent a lowering to the levels of economic life prevailing in other lands.
In the history of the nation the protective tariff system has ever justified itself by restoring confidence, promoting industrial activity and employment, enormously increasing our purchasing power and bringing increased prosperity to all our people.
The tariff protection to our industry works for increased consumption of domestic agricultural products by an employed population instead of one unable to purchase the necessities of life. Without the strict maintenance of the tariff principle our farmers will need always to compete with cheap lands and cheap labor abroad and with lower standards of living.
The enormous value of the protective principle has once more been demonstrated by the emergency tariff act of 1921 and the tariff act of 1922.
We assert our belief in the elastic provision adopted by congress in the tariff act of 1922 providing for a method of readjusting the tariff rates and the classifications in order to meet changing economic conditions when such changed conditions are brought to the attention of the president by complaint or application.
Not sure what is being discussed in changes, but if they back the platform away from its defense of Life against abortion in any way, it could be potentially devastating to pro-life voters.
May of which will stay home like they did with Romney who was pro-choice.
Stupid I know, but it could cause Trump to lose a good part of the base.
Let me guess … this 60-page GOP platform includes lots of platitudes about “fiscal responsibility” and “a balanced budget.” And yet the last 20+ years have demonstrated to us that there are few people in government who are LESS fiscally responsible than the big-government, globalist Republicans who have dominated the party for decades.
You’re not in charge, Linda, so shaddup.
We’ve really got to monitor this guy/gal. Won’t do any good except perhaps in ‘26 when he’s up again. Perhaps he’ll take himself out as I don’t see anyone stepping up, not even a change for changes-sake candidate. Problem is his successor will be someone like Nancy Mace. Then there’s Tim Scott. He has other fish to fry. Replacing 2 of them over 2 years might put stress on the party with no incumbents. Who’s in line? The senate is beneath Nikki.
2026-we need to take out Cassidy in La. Impeachment vote. Who’s step-in up? He’s gotta be pressured long beforehand to quit. Would it work? It would help if the rats posted a strong candidate.
Exactly, the repeal of R v. W makes it a non-federal issue. Stick to the stuff the Feds are doing to screw us.
He's bringing it up to help Democrats.
Pro-lifers must win the battle at the state level and in the trenches, at abortion clinics.
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