The party of Lincoln and Reagan does not negotiate with terrorists- and it must not nominate one!

As I've mentioned before, at least one researcher has found a strong correlation between support for Donald Trump and authoritarianism. Events continue to add to the impression that Il Duce, as I've taken to calling him, is indeed a fascist leading a movement of fascists.

His fondness for threatening people who criticize him is worrisome. So is his habit of encouraging his supporters to rough up protesters and his rallies. So are his threats to send supporters to disrupt Bernie Sanders rallies (on the bogus assumption that since Leftist morons attempting to disrupt his chanted Sanders' name, his campaign must have sent them). But now comes the frosting on the cake.

The rules have been clear from the git-go: you win the presidential nomination by winning a majority of the delegates to the convention. Not a plurality; a majority. It's always been that way; in fact, for many years, Democratic conventions required not just a simple majority, but a two-thirds majority, for the nomination.

Now, a word of amelioration should be said with regard to his latest threat: Trump did not predict riots if he isn't nominated. He didn't even predict riots if he isn't nominated after receiving a plurality of the votes in the primaries and caucuses. For the sake of precision, accuracy and fairness, I'm not going to paraphrase his statement. Instead, I'm going to quote him directly.

I think we’ll win before getting to the convention, but I can tell you, if we didn’t and if we’re 20 votes short or if we’re 100 short and we’re at 1,100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400, because we’re way ahead of everybody, I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically...I think it would be — I think you’d have riots. I think you’d have riots. I’m representing a tremendous, many, many millions of people...

If you disenfranchise those people and you say, well I’m sorry but you’re 100 votes short, even though the next one is 500 votes short, I think you would have problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen, I really do. I believe that. I wouldn’t lead it but I think bad things would happen.

Now, before I say anything else, I'm going to say this: it isn't going to happen. It doesn't work that way. History and common sense tell us that if a candidate comes within a hundred votes of the nomination at a convention, he gets the nomination on the next ballot. It has nothing to do with being entitled to it, as Trump implies. It's simply a function of human nature.

If a candidate comes within a hundred votes of the nomination (much less twenty!) simple, selfish opportunism will cause a stampede to be with the winner. It happened with Eisenhower in 1952. It happened with Ford in 1976. The scenario Trump is presenting simply isn't going to happen.

But that doesn't matter. The fact remains that this bully is threatening violence if he doesn't get his way at Cleveland, no matter how unlikely the scenario he presents might be. And after making such a threat, history and honor and every tradition of this Republic absolutely forbid the Republican party to nominate him for President of the United States.

If now that he has  made this implicit threat, the Republican party nominates him, it will be dishonored for all time. His outrageous and downright un-American statements have long since guaranteed that were he to be nominated the Republican party would bear a moral stain from which it might never recover. But now, there is simply no way the Republican party could ever hold its head up with any possible degree of self-respect or honor and ask the American people to trust it with the governance of the Republic if it nominates Donald Trump at Cleveland.

The party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan does not negotiate with terrorists, much less nominate them for president.

National Review's Heather MacDonald is exactly right: Trump's latest threats disqualify him from the presidency. No believer in freedom can consistently support his candidacy at this point. He must be denied the Republican nomination, not only because he is dangerous, but because one of our major political parties simply cannot submit to blackmail. Not only the honor of the Republican party but that of the nation itself would be irreparably stained if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee this year. And if it happens, the Republican party will deserve to die.