Politico reports that a “close associate” of the ginger windbag said that Trump will sign the GOP loyalty pledge, which makes him promise he won’t run as an independent if the party doesn’t hand him the nomination. I want the oath to be administered by Tom Sawyer in a tree house behind Aunt Polly’s house, but what’s actually going to happen is that Trump will fold the document into a paper football and punt it through Reince Priebus’s goalpost hands at Trump Tower later this afternoon.
The “close associate” claims that Trump will sign the pledge because he feels as if he’s been treated fairly by the process so far, and because he doesn’t want the issue of his not signing to distract from the level of crazy that he’s prepared to unleash at the next Republican debate, which is scheduled for September 16 in Southern California.
Signing the pledge will also make it easier for Trump to get on the ballot in several primary states. Why would Trump have a problem getting on the ballot? Because state political parties can make candidates jump through little hoops if they want to get listed on the ballot. Signing the GOP loyalty pledge is one such hoop. South Carolina was going to add the hoop, and Virginia and North Carolina were talking about it also.
Trump’s always used the threat to run as an independent as leverage: If you kick him out of the race then he’ll run anyway and split the vote, thereby handing the election to Hillary on a Trump-gold platter. Why? Because BOOM fuck you that’s why. *Smoke screen*
Signing the pledge, then, means that he’s taking the process seriously, playing by the party’s rules in order to widen his base, and preparing to abandon the Sherman strategy he’s been employing so far in the primary race.
OR DOES IT?
There’s no way that signing the pledge was Trump’s idea. Trump walked into the room holding a bald eagle in one hand and a scimitar in the other, and just before he pulled some King Solomon shit on a live Skype feed to the Iowa State Fair, an aide thought about his massive student loan debt and held back Trump’s hand. “There’s a better way. You don’t need to burn your bridge with the party in order to stay relevant, sir. There’s a way you can have both. Sign the pledge, but remember: It’s mere paper.”
What’s a pledge to Trump? The guy wants to put a bullet hole in the Fourteenth Amendment, and the GOP thinks a pledge is going to stop him if he feels slighted by the process? Doesn’t seem likely. Trump signs the pledge to appease the RNC, and if he doesn’t get the nomination he can still run anyway, only now as a mega-outsider-victim-of-establishment-politics who was forced to break his pledge to the GOP because of their cronyism, or because of whatever reason Trump wants to give.
From a less cynical perspective, signing the pledge does offer him a relatively more graceful way out of the race. He can run, stir shit up for a few more months, and then use his popularity as leverage to make more money on TV later. Even if he loses the nomination, Trump won’t lose.
*Update*
Pledge-face game: strong. Framed photo game: super strong.
Here is @realDonaldTrump signing the Repub pledge (pic tweeted by his son) pic.twitter.com/Idc2632qBR
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) September 3, 2015
