That Awkward Moment When North Dakota Trump Supporter Gary Emineth Realizes His Candidate Is a Thug
There was some poetic justice for former NDGOP chairman Gary Emineth at the Republican National Convention today.
In case you weren’t paying attention the RNC – working hand-in-hand with the Trump campaign – quashed an effort from delegates on the floor of the convention to get a state-by-state roll call vote on party rule changes. The conservative insurgents pushing for the changes were overruled by the convention chairman who said a voice vote approved them despite that clearly not being the case, something apparent to all who were listening.
The drama was something of a spectacle, and a sharp departure for these national convention which are usually heavily scripted and boring:
Which brings us to Emineth, and outspoken Trump supporter here in North Dakota. He’s quite upset about how the vote came out, and has now resigned his position on a Trump campaign fundraising committee according to multiple reports.
This one from the Associated Press:
The defeated mavericks reacted angrily, with some delegates leaving the convention floor and others vowing to not help Trump. Gary Emineth, a North Dakota delegate and GOP donor who was part of the insurgency, said he would resign from a fund-raising operation.
“You don’t do this in America,” he said.
More from The Hill:
Emineth says he’s furious the campaign and RNC worked in tandem to keep delegates from voting their conscience.
“I was on the Trump finance committee and I just resigned because that bully tactic is absurd,” Emineth said. “I just texted them right now. Why can’t the people be heard? I’ve been texting Reince for 10 minutes. He said we didn’t have the votes. We had 10, 11 states. They peeled people back. They were calling delegations asking people to step off the committee. You don’t do this in America. You do this in other countries.” …
“If that’s how they’re doing the Republican Party, they can have it,” Emineth said, before calling on Priebus to resign.
“It’s a joke,” Emineth said.
The Republican party with Trump at the top of the national ticket is, absolutely, a joke. A very, very bad one in that it might just result in this thug getting a seat in the White House where he’ll be steamrolling dissenters in policy debates of much more importance than arcane and in-the-weeds party rules.
What’s frustrating is that someone like Emineth is just now waking up to the problem. What part of Trump’s campaign for the nomination, a belligerent three ring circus act with the bombastic and vile candidate at the center, convinced Emineth that things would be any different than this?
Did Emineth really think Trump’s convention was going to be an exercise in consensus building?
Of course Trump is going to strong-arm his political opposition. That’s what’s so alarming about the possibility that he might one day end up in White House and bring these sort of tactics with him.
Trump was this thug all along. I guess some are just figuring it out later than others.
Update: Emineth tells Dave Weigel at the Washington Post that he doesn’t blame Trump:
“To be honest, I wouldn’t put this on Donald Trump,” said Emineth. “I think Donald Trump has been used by the RNC. I just think he’s been frustrated by the money raised, and how little there’s been.”
I guess that’s how Emineth is rationalizing this. But then, why did he step down from Trump’s fundraising committee?
UPDATE 7/19: Emineth on MSNBC this morning discussing what happened:
