First Impressions Matter

Perception becomes reality:
This is all disaffected
Republicans see.

The Colorado Republican Party's decision last summer to jettison a presidential poll at its caucus on Tuesday looks worse with every passing day. [More]

It's not hard to imagine the Denver Post editorial staff high-fiving as the GOP "leadership" self-destructs.

It doesn't matter if there are esoteric inside baseball rationales or if varied arcane Democrat caucus rules do their share of deck-stacking the media is happy to overlook. All that matters is what the average, frustrated, Republican-leaning voter walks away thinking, that everything is being changed without his influence and against his will -- to the benefit of those who know how to pull the right strings and push the right buttons -- and that he has been rendered voiceless.

Donald Trump is wrong about riots from his supporters, at least in the "traditional" sense of opportunistic masses running wild in the streets with TVs and toilet paper. I don't see the type of people concerned with the issues he's taken the lead on being that type, certainly not to loot and burn, no matter how much they're conflated with violent "extremists" and painted as bigger domestic threats than Islamists bent on forcing submission.

That said, a quote from a Democrat icon comes to mind.

Congratulations, Dead Elephant Party. You are more to blame than overt domestic enemies, because you snookered the desperate into having a hope you never intended to fulfill.