Police at the 1968 Democratic convention restrain Pigasus, the Yippie nominee.
Don’t worry: after he was denied the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, Pigasus went on to a successful career in investment banking. Today he is a bundler for Hillary Clinton. After yesterday’s primaries, Pigasus and I will probably be voting for the same candidate come November, since our other option is Donald Trump. The billionaire and decreasingly funny running joke didn’t quite seize the nomination last night, but he took all in winner-take-all Florida and knocked Maro Rubio out of the race. Now it’s just him and Ted Cruz, unless John Kasich wins 94% of delegates between now and July.
So why is Kasich staying in? He expects a brokered convention, and he’s not wrong to think that many Republicans—especially the ones who run the party—would rather send him to the generals than either of his opponents. It’s still entirely possible Trump will hit July with a simple majority of delegates, and that will be that. But it’s equally plausible he won’t, especially since former Rubio supporters would seem more likely to shift their loyalty to the other hyper-conservative anglicized Latino senator than to the egomaniac threatening riots.
In an interview with CNN about the possibility of a brokered convention, Trump said, “I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically. I think you’d have riots. I think you’d have riots. I’m representing many, many millions of people.” Note that he’s not calling for riots himself. He’s just saying, twice, that if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination, that’s probably what will happen. Trump doesn’t like these riots among millions of people who demand he become president any more than you do.
All of this news is a mere curiosity to me, since I will be dead by then. I know I’ve been sicker than this before, because I had walking pneumonia in college. But this thing has really put the zap on me, and the road to recovery is long, viscous, and green with streaks of blood. I’d like to take a moment to thank the inventor of antibiotics, Ted Antibiot, because if this happened to me in 1816 I would be dead. On the other hand, I could write about the evident disintegration of the Federalist Party, so maybe it wouldn’t be so different after all.
