Why it is Impossible to Reform the GOP

Priebus Throws the Hammer Down on Dissent

  This is what happens when grassroots activists really succeed in taking over a state party. Actually, that is a highly sterilized version of what happened. The full story demonstrates to any person with the courage to accept it why it is a waste of life energy to attempt to take back either of these hopelessly corrupted and purchased political parties.

 They may have elaborate forms and functions which create the illusion that they are controlled from the bottom up, but should any group with a true grassroots bent take control of a state party the illusion is dispensed with. The parties are simply private clubs, controlled at the top, and funded largely by interests which are global rather than American in nature. And you can't change that. You can only waste life trying.

 The grassroots group which took control of the Nevada state GOP happened to be Ron Paul supporters, but it doesn't matter who the establishment cheats- all that matters is that you know that even if you and your friends ever manage to win fair and square that you will be cheated. The Romney campaign and the national GOP conspired to operate a "Shadow Party" in the state called "Team Nevada". It was composed of many of the establishment types legally ousted from their offices in county and state conventions.

 So, despite all their complaints about other people who "take their ball and go home" when they lose instead of sticking around and building the party, they took their ball and went home. Only this ball was in the form of cash. The national GOP diverted funds which should have been spent on the Nevada GOP to "Team Nevada" as well.

 The article claims "Priebus confirmed that he has held multiple conversations with the Nevada Republican Party chairman and other Silver State GOP officials, with meetings planned in January to discuss how the RNC might help the Nevada GOP transform itself. The party was so organizationally debilitated throughout 2012 that it was incapable of performing even basic party-building activities, causing the RNC and top state Republicans to form a shadow party to run essential operations such as voter turnout."

 It is the national party which needs re-habbing, not the Nevada GOP. The national GOP has lost touch with its former base, which explains why more and more former conservative Republicans are self-IDing as "Independents" and why their Milquetoast candidate got millions of votes less than John McCain. If the Nevada GOP was "dysfunctional" it was because of the shivs in the back they got from "Team Nevada" and the National GOP. The national GOP helped form and fund a rival to the duly elected Republican party and then has the nerve to complain that the state party can't do its job!

 "Team Nevada" was formed in May of 2012, right after establishment forces lost races for key party positions. And "Team Nevada" was staffed by many of the same people who were ousted. If Nevada was "dysfunctional throughout" 2012, how did they know that in month five of 2012, and why staff "Team Nevada" with the same people who were, until a few days earlier, running the "dysfunctional" state party? No friends, what happened was that the grassroots won one, fair and square. The establishment can't tolerate dissent, so they formed a rival group, which their hack politicians then worked through. That group is still operating.

 The Governor and other state elected officials are more loyal to the national HQ in DC than they are grassroots Republicans in their own state. They are threatening to continue to work through "Team Nevada" if the state GOP does not bow down.  The party has achieved escape velocity from the people.  All the guys in DC need is a small cadre of shills on the ground to give their top-down control the illusion of legitimacy.

 Activists, the harder you work to win this rigged game, the worse you will be cheated.