Dump Trump?

There has been a lot of talk of a renewed "Dump Trump" movement within the GOP. This growing disfavor springs from the revulsion felt toward Trump's recent racist comments about the judge overseeing his Trump University case. (The released documents have not helped Trump's case.)

I didn't take these murmurings too seriously until I saw this: The official GOP website makes no mention of Trump.

Hillary is there. Bernie is there. George H.W.Bush is there. Reagan is there. Reagan/Bush. Lincoln is there. No Trump anywhere. Not on the blog, signups. Not anywhere that I could find.

It's obvious that many GOP leaders want rid of Trump -- but how? How can they adios the guy, stay within their rules, and keep the GOP voters at least somewhat faithful to the party?

Well, there's this...

Approximately one-third of the delegations to the Republican National Convention will be bound to primary or caucus winners by state election laws. For the rest of them, however, the "binding" is by national party rules, and ultimately the rules of every Republican convention are made and can be unmade by the convention itself. So, in theory, convention delegates could vote to unbind themselves (or at least those not bound by state election laws) before the first presidential ballot and throw the nomination open again. If you recall that a significant number of "Trump delegates" are not personally loyal to the wiggy dude to begin with, you could see how a revolt could gain traction under very precise — and unlikely — circumstances.

This tactic becomes do-able only if the something changes the way Trump voters feel about their hero. I don't know what that something might be, but it has to be big.

How likely is that?

Pretty bloody unlikely -- now. But if some new skeleton pops out of the closet and says BOO...who knows? It'd have to be one godawful scary skeleton, because none of the previous skeletons have sufficed.

Maybe the Trump International escort service is the scandal that will finally do in the Donald.

Both the Democrats and Republicans have every incentive to get together and collaborate on new primary rules which will prevent populist insurgencies from commandeering the mainstream parties. Populists can form their own party. (Actually, they did so more than a century ago -- and there have been repeated attempts to resurrect the idea.)

Side note: The lead lawyer in Trump's case is Daniel Petrocelli. (He's the guy who brought a successful wrongful death against O.J. Simpson.) After The Donald hired him, Petrocelli made a hefty donation to Hillary's campaign.