As Republican National Committee members meet to draft and vote on the party platform a week before the convention, Christian and pro-life Republicans are bracing for a betrayal in Milwaukee: Rumors are circulating around town that the Trump campaign wants to slim down and streamline the platform and remove (or at least water down) pro-life content.
The 2016 platform will be used again in 2020,
state“We support a constitutional amendment and a human life amendment in law that makes clear that the protections of the 14th Amendment apply to preborn children.”
Similar language has been included since Ronald Reagan was nominated in 1980. Now that hardline stance is in danger of being overturned.
The move, planned in secret, is intended to broaden support for former President Donald Trump but threatens to backfire badly, split the party and dominate headlines at the Republican National Convention.
There are plenty of warning signs. For the first time since conservatives broke into the party’s backrooms in 1980, activists were barred from the proceedings. Early activists, spearheaded by the late conservative legend Phyllis Schlafly, knew that light could sterilize closed-door proceedings, and they fought to keep that light shining.
Removing socially conservative elements from his platform won’t attract new voters, but it will alienate his most enthusiastic voters.
“To make matters worse, the party has barred the media, including C-SPAN, from platform committee deliberations. While the party has never barred the media from the smaller subcommittee meetings that precede platform committee meetings, banning them from filming the discussions and positions of the 112 committee members is a significant break from precedent and a cause for serious concern.
The campaign then took control of the process. The convention has 2,429 delegates, and each state and territory may nominate a number of its members to the Platform Committee and its subcommittees.
“When the Trump campaign was working with state parties to nominate delegates, absolute loyalty was a prerequisite for any platform changes the Trump campaign wanted to make,” a person familiar with the matter told The Blaze News. It was an “unprecedented” level of “command and control.”
“This is the first time we’ve been shut out,” Tom McCluskey, communications director for the Catholic Vote and a veteran of the platform committee, told The Blaze News. “At the state level, representatives with strong pro-life credentials are being blocked and replaced. … It’s a disturbing series of events that makes me wary when the word comes out.”
“This isn’t just a pro-life issue,” another person long involved in the process told The Blaze News, noting the former president has pivoted from his defense of traditional marriage.
“But the fundamental issues are different from any campaign in the past. They’re claiming this is the campaign platform,” the convention veteran said. “No. This is supposed to be the party platform. Unless they address that, the rest is just situational.”
Such demands are rare in a campaign. Not since Richard Nixon’s 1972 administration has an administration been so heavy-handed in meddling in the electoral process. It wasn’t without contests, but there was pushback from below. When then-Senator Bob Dole (R-Kansas) ran for president and called for a softening of the pro-life side of his platform, an independent-minded committeeman,
And a little staff interference) cancelled the plan.
The problem for pro-lifers today, McCluskey points out wryly, is that Trump has generated far more excitement and loyalty than Dole, then-Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Mitt Romney or George W. Bush ever did. And his campaign is counting on that.
“Unfortunately, there probably aren’t any votes to block the change,” one activist said. “At this point, they’re just going to simplify the 10th Amendment for the president and go with it.” [back-to-the-states] This is a statement that is going to really anger pro-life people no matter what.”
Meaningfulplatform. It’s long and complicated, but it represents the interests of thousands of parties and everyone is involved.
Plus, it’s a useful organizing tool. For example, the IRS allows churches to post platforms even when they’re not technically allowed to endorse candidates. Evangelical Republican activist Ralph Reed mastered this over the past few decades, sending out portions of the Democratic and Republican platforms and letting them speak for themselves.
“That’s the problem,” another person familiar with the process explained to The Blaze News. “People from the Trump campaign came pouring in and said, ‘We’re running this show. Now, how is this show going to work?'”
And changing platforms There is no stopping the Democratic attack. Joe Biden or Kamala Harris’ (or anyone else’s) campaign will portray Donald Trump as anti-abortion, anti-birth control, and anti-women, that’s for sure. So what would removing that from the platform actually accomplish?
The short answer is that there are too many issues the GOP doesn’t need to address right now. Trump has unified the GOP. The Democratic Party is completely broken. Removing socially conservative parts of the platform would not attract new voters, but would alienate committed voters. Moreover, it would hijack the proceedings and allow intraparty infighting to dominate the headlines. Conservatives are already clamoring about the rumored changes, and new people and organizations in the process are suddenly clamoring too.
“People who have never worked for a platform are suddenly caring about the platform,” McCluskey said, citing groups such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life as examples.
That is That’s not to say that conservatives wouldn’t accept a revised platform, but one that leaves abortion entirely up to the states is unacceptable. Without addressing the role of the federal government, which has been actively involved in abortion at home and abroad for 50 years.
“Nobody really believes in their heart that there isn’t a role for the federal government,” McCluskey explained. “The federal government has been pro-abortion.
Roe v. Wade“At the very least, Donald Trump should call for neutrality at the federal level, which means not interfering with the states and ending subsidies for abortion.”
“We can change the wording to say we are working toward a culture that is accepting of pro-life positions and that we are moving forward with a constitutional amendment at that point, but if we were to stop supporting the constitutional amendment, it would demoralize many pro-lifers.”
The first sign delegates will see will be when they arrive at the welcome reception on Sunday. There’s no rule that says the author must be given the podium to read from that evening, but it would be highly unusual if they weren’t, and a sign that the author had little time to read the book.
“It’s going to come the hard way,” predicted one conservative activist working on the issue. “Here’s how it’s going to play out: The Trump campaign will have delegates to the Republican National Convention submit a pre-written platform that will be watered down and won’t include any abortion language. Then a committee will sit down for a day or two and make changes and amendments. But we’ve looked at the list, and it’s favorable for the campaign. They really think abortion is going to destroy us this year.”
One platform veteran said a streamlined platform “can make a nice, clean platform, but it can also make a bland platform.”
“It’s like Jenga,” McCluskey explained. “If you remove one piece and Trump picks a bad vice president; [Gov.] Doug Burgum, and suddenly pro-lifers realized they didn’t have a political party anymore.”
“I don’t think the people who are writing the platform understand the importance of the platform.”
“We don’t have the majority to sustain it,” one activist worried. “So we want Trump’s words to not be so bad, or if they’re bad, we want 30 or 35 delegates to fix the language. We’re okay with the language being a little weaker, as long as the message is maintained. We need to throw these people a bone. This is just an unnecessary provocation.”
“They don’t need to do this! Democrats are going to spend a billion dollars on attack ads anyway. So you’re not gaining, you’re losing. You have a united party behind you. This is dividing the party.”
National Review: Looking to the past as a guide to solidifying Republican policy
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The Fire Burns: Daily Caller News Foundation: China’s Communist Party talent training program recruits former Microsoft researchers who now work in China’s AI industry.
China has no greater allies and assets in the United States than our greedy corporations, some of which are even foolish enough to brag about it. As Will Kessler reports:
…Microsoft boasted in a 2016 news release that 20 graduates from Microsoft Research Asia, the company’s Asian research institute, had been selected as members of the Thousand Talents Plan. Through Chinese-language news reports, DCNF identified six prominent former Microsoft researchers who participated in the Chinese Communist Party’s Thousand Talents Plan while working for China-based companies and universities.
…Former senior CIA intelligence officer William Hannas told The New York Times that more than 10,000 scientists were recruited as part of the program.
“This isn’t just any old recruiting program to hire and train engineers like we have in the U.S.,” Jeffrey Cain, an author and journalist who has spent a decade researching Microsoft in China, told DCNF. “This is a Communist Party-run project to enable China to gain technological superiority over the Western liberal democracies of the world.”
