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Glenn's Show Prep

Brokered Convention: Everything You Need to Know

March 16, 2016
Jon Boldt

Writer

Sean Trende joined The Glenn Beck Program on Wednesday to explain just how a brokered or contested convention might work and broke down how he sees the rest of the GOP primary playing out.

Trende is the senior elections analyst at Real Clear Politics and knows his stuff better than just about anybody.

Listen to the segment from radio or read the transcript below.

The Math is the Math

GLENN: Okay. And, Sean, you're not a political guy. You're just here to tell us how this system works, right?

SEAN: Yeah, that's right. I can't lie and say I don't have strong feelings about some of these candidates. But at the end of the day, I try to be a data guy. The math is the math. And the way we think this thing is going to pan out, you know, it's just driven by the rules and the math.

GLENN: Can anybody actually get to the convention with enough delegates to actually win it outright? Can they?

SEAN: They can. And the fact that John Kasich is going to stay in the Republican race going forward does help Donald Trump do that. But it's by no means a guaranteed thing that this is going to happen. I'd say there's probably a 50/50 shot that no one gets the delegates they need to avoid a contested convention.

GLENN: If Kasich was out, would Cruz have an equal shot at getting the delegates, do you think?

SEAN: Yeah. I think if Kasich had said, you know what, I did what I needed to do in Ohio, but there's no path to the nomination, you know, I'm going to use my 66 delegates to try to be the vice presidential nominee.

If you look at the exit polls, they ask head-to-head questions. In Michigan, Cruz came out ahead of Trump in a two-person race. He almost certainly would have won North Carolina and Missouri. So, yeah, without Kasich, Cruz's path looks much better.

Understanding the Rules

GLENN: Okay. So tell me, what are the rules, can they actually bring somebody in from the outside like this and expect us not to rebel?

SEAN: Yes, they can bring someone in from the outside after the first ballot. But, no, I think especially someone like Jeb Bush who was soundly rejected by the Republican electorate, it would be suicide to have him come in and, surprise! I'm the nominee.

GLENN: Kasich actually thinks he's going to be the president of the United States. He's not not even close. He's not even close. How are they thinking that they're going to manipulate these numbers to be able to get a winner that we could all coalesce around?

SEAN: Yeah. I don't know what Kasich is thinking. I live in Ohio. And it's not surprising to me. But he's -- he's wrong, if he thinks he's going to be the nominee.

Look, I think the idea of Ryan or somebody like that -- look, if we can get to Cleveland and this thing goes five or six ballots and nobody can pull together a majority, in the past, that's where dark horse candidates have emerged. But there's not going to be a scenario where we have the first ballot and then Paul Ryan pops out on the second ballot. Something like that only happens if there's just no way to come to terms with -- between the two candidates who have a reasonable number of delegates.

The Power of Delegating: Explaining the Voting Process

STU: Sean, can you explain the process here? Like, Rubio has 180 delegates, let's say. So they get to the convention. Does he still control those delegates? What happens to those? How does the bargaining process go when it comes to that -- when we get to the actual contested convention?

SEAN: So all this stuff is determined by the states. You know, some states don't have bound delegates at all. From the very first day, they can vote for whoever they want. And some states -- so the primary is just kind of what we call a beauty contest so that people can get a sense of where their state stands up.

Some states bind their delegates for more than one ballot, so on the second and third ballot, they still have to vote for the person. So Rubio can endorse someone. There are some states where he can instruct his delegates to vote for someone else.

STU: So after that first ballot, essentially these delegates in most cases get to do what they want to do. But the thought is that they probably would follow the lead of a Rubio or a Kasich?

SEAN: That's right. And, again, we get into the real nitty-gritty, some states these delegates have been hand-selected by the candidates. So in Ohio, the delegates are Kasich regulars. So they're more likely to listen to him.

In some states, they're just kind of like party officials. You know, the state committee chairman and the large counties. They don't have any loyalty to any candidate outside of what the rules say they have to do on the first ballot. So there it's free agents.

A Close Second Can Come in First

GLENN: So can I ask -- this is a really stupid question. Let's say it's -- I don't know, 1100 for Trump and, you know, 950 for Cruz. And we get to the second ballot or whatever.

How does Cruz not win that when it comes to, we've got a guy who is really close to Donald Trump? How does he not get those extra delegates, just 200 delegates just to push him over the top, especially if Marco Rubio is saying, I strongly urge you, you know? Or, I'm the vice president on that ticket, vote for Cruz.

SEAN: Right.

GLENN: How does he not win that?

SEAN: There are no stupid questions. And that's actually a very smart question.

GLENN: Oh, that's usually what people say when there's a stupid question.

SEAN: No, that is a very smart question. It is the question. Like, there is a point -- like, Donald Trump, if he walks in with 1236 delegates, is still going to be the nominee. But there is a point where, you're right. Like, especially since these delegates are by and large party regulars who have not been favorably inclined towards Donald Trump. You know, I think if Trump is at 1100 delegates, I think you sketched it out exactly right. There will be the first ballot. And then on the second ballot, they will break towards Cruz. But he has to be a substantial amount behind 1237 for that to occur.

GLENN: And what is that number, do you think? 1100?

GLENN: Because we got him unfortunately at 1139 in just doing a back of the paper. Today, we got him at 1139. So you think that's close enough that they'll just say, "He gets it?"

SEAN: You know, so 1139 would be almost exactly 100. You know, now my personal feelings come into it, and I'll say no.

But, you know, like there isn't a bright line, right? But I think 100 is where you start to say, you know, it's probably not going to be Trump being -- but conventions are just funny things. And they have been historically, whenever -- that's why we have these binding rules to keep them from being funny things. It's going to be weird, and it's going to be great for page views and listenership.

Who Runs the Show in a Brokered Convention?

GLENN: Okay. So tell me this: Who puts the convention together? Going into it, usually the nominee is helping pick the speakers and help build the platform and everything else. What happens here?

SEAN: That's another very good question. As you say, historically, you have a presumptive nominee, and the RNC just kind of turns the keys over and gives a bank account to the winning candidacy. But this time, the RNC is going to have to run it. They're going to have to plan it out. And they're going to have to try to plan it out the way it's at least perceived as fair. And that's a really tall task.

GLENN: We look at John Kasich and say, "He just doesn't get it. What delusional world is he living in?" But can I ask the same question -- and I'd love to hear your opinion, if you have one. What delusional world does the G.O.P. come from right now, where Mitch McConnell came out and said, "Hey, you know, maybe we'll throw our support behind Ted Cruz if he apologizes to me?" It was -- it was so clear last night that between Cruz and Trump, the establishment is rejected by the vast majority of people.

Where are they? Where are their heads? What's it going to take for them to start saying, "Hey, maybe I should start listening to the people?"

SEAN: You know, that's a very good question. I mean, this is to a certain degree the G.O.P. establishment's fault. Both in some of the ways they've behaved over the past six years, some major -- ten years really. Some major miscalculations on their part with legislation they've signed on to. I don't know what it's going to take for them to get it. Because it's pretty obvious that, like, your choice is Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. You don't demand that Ted Cruz apologize right now.

The Rubio Effect

STU: We were using this sort of this back-of-the-envelope math, where it's about four to one; they go to Cruz over Trump. Is that what you've seen in exit polls? And you think that that's something that goes forward in the same sort of way?

SEAN: Yeah, it's like I said, these exit polls have asked follow-up questions. So if it were just Cruz and Trump, who would you vote for? And we find that Trump gets almost no increase. No improvement in his showings in those questions.

So, yeah, if Rubio had dropped out two weeks ago or even a week ago, you know, he still would have lost Florida because of all the early voting. But last night would have looked very different.

GLENN: What about Kasich? If he would get out, who do his people break for?

SEAN: Again, his voters are disproportionately post graduate education, live in suburbs, you know, make over $200,000 a year. I don't know that -- I think a lot of them just stay home, quite frankly. But to the extent that they break, I think they break disproportionately for Cruz. They're the antithesis of Trump voters.

Featured Image: Caption:The West side of the US Capitol Building is seen in this May 1, 2012 photo in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.