The Road to November: GOP - Convention and Nomination

Donald Trump accepts the Republican Party's Presidential nomination at the national convention in Cleveland, Ohio

More than a year since the presidential election cycle began amid the conventional stirrings, power plays, positioning and rhetoric, the Republican Party - fondly known as the GOP - finds itself convening in Ohio and the city of Cleveland, and very much removed from what it may have casually mused one year before, and indeed what it has amounted to in the intervening period. The color of discourse markedly different in July of 2015, it has been to the puzzlement of outsiders, the consternation of the orthodox and the ambition of others as we find Donald Trump accepting - amid controversy - the Republican Party presidential nomination of 2016. One year before, such a singular event was neigh on unthinkable: indeed, the process and turbulent shifts which would be necessary for such a nascence was not considered at best, and even preposterous at worst.

And yet, presently, it stands to reason that these unlikely and remarkable events have produced a Trump candidacy to contest the coming presidential race, on the eve of Barack Obama's final months in the White House. In a long year of upsets, upheavals, outrages, outcries and eruptions without precedent in modern times, it will remain that the candidacy of Donald Trump will stand as one of the most singular embodiment's of western democracy's uncertain age, and its ability to manifest in uncertain, extraordinary and even shocking ways.

It has been appreciated for millennia that defiance can be more than just a singular quality, but a powerful - even dangerous - political capital, and it can be attested that few in modern times have sought to define themselves in that image as Donald Trump has. Defiant in rhetoric, defiant in his politics, though it remains, ultimately, to what end will his defiance serve...

The GOP Pre-Election Convention, in Cleveland, Ohio

July 18th - 21st, 2016

It was a very different story, one year ago. The heat slowly beginning to enthuse presidential ambitions and political designs, the Republican Party was in a different place as the remarkable - and unprecedented - presidency of Barack Obama passed into its last year. The Democratic president's regime having been a broad success, leading Republicans began to assemble and promote their respective bids, within their own party, for the White House: a selection of leading personalities, nascent stars and other powerful careers drawing up as Obama's eight years closed. The stage ultimately crowded by sixteen potential candidates, the months from summer 2015 to spring 2016 would see hopefuls come and go as more persistent ambitions hardened behind closed doors and under media glare. The jostling of faction and personalities the subject of much debate and speculation, the spectacle that unfolded was chronicled by many, though it remained to the liberal news network, The Young Turks, to explore the potential candidates in their usual, inimitable style as "The Freak Sixteen".

It would remain to surprise - even shock - both liberals and conservatives alike as the distinguished of the GOP gradually fell away, some lingering until the very last in protest, as the most unlikely of their number made his way to the top - Donald Trump. An incongruous, blustering and peripheral figure in the environs of American politics for a time, his previous empty gestures towards the presidency in yesteryear seemed to preclude the magnate from a real attempt - and indeed, a real standing in the Republican Party. But, it would seem that the times were ostensibly with this unlikely - and seemingly unbecoming - figure as anti-establishment sentiment and philosophies had motivated millions to campaign, protest and to seek an antidote to the issues of the current political process: a phenomena seen in both Europe and the US to remarkable effect.

Amid the more reactionary of the disaffected, ethnically charged and vociferous in their ambition, the figure - the mold, rhetoric and ostensible power - of the clumsy, but charged and unwavering Donald Trump gave a champion against the seeming cultural, social and political retreats of years past: a solution to the sullen acquiesce and resignation felt in parts, or manufactured by others as social politics under Obama came into a new age. In this respect, the more than year long process would see traditional patricians, religious and social conservatives, and especially what few moderates remained to have their names whispered, be usurped by a new, and shockingly singular force in Trump. So it was as tempers cooled and designs hoisted upon the would be president that the party convened in Cleveland, Ohio.

Former rival, Ted Cruz refuses to endorse
 Trump in a controversial speech to delegates

The convention rumbling with charged but all too dilated grievance and ambition, the agenda came to be set by a party seemingly divided in itself against what was considered common and irreducible threats to themselves, their identity as Americans and America itself. The convention was notable for a number of particular distinctions seen and earned both on the convention floor and off it, as the GOP - its principal effort now led by Trump's campaign - sought to foster a sense of eminent purpose and drive as party politics - even at this late hour - swirled around.

Even as delegates began to reconcile and support the Trump nomination, it remained to one of Trump's former rivals - perhaps his most pronounced - in the Texan senator Ted Cruz: a former front runner of the party and Trump's most particular rival after such favorite's as Jeb Bush - regarded by many as something of a "crown prince" - and Chris Christie receded into obscurity. In a speech anticipated to consolidate his support of Trump's all but inevitable nomination, Cruz used this highly anticipated moment to instead urge delegates to "vote your conscience" - an overt rejection of Trump's seeming hegemony and a call to delegates to resist nominating him as their presidential contender. In the end, it would come to nothing - and by the end of his speech, his words were already mingled with the growing booing and chanting of the angry crowds below. Elsewhere, peers and fellow Republican's met his speech with disdain and contempt for his seemingly petulant defiance - indeed, the chair of the Alaskan wing dismissed it as a "petulant misfire".

Paul Ryan among congressional

republicans attending the convention

More over, varied figures of the right and numerous celebrities appeared to offer their commendation, if not outright support, of Trump's nomination and presumed campaign to come. Marco Rubio - once a presidential hopeful himself - allowed a video to be screened to delegates commending Trump's nomination, and Chris Christie - once a presidential favorite before controversy rocked his aspirations - gave a speech, as did party authority, and old Clinton adversary, Newt Gingrich. More so, other leading congressional republicans, as with former 2012 VP nominee Paul Ryan, spoke in support of Trump - if not in praise of his person, but certainly as a counter to the then presumed Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Though, it remains to be said that much of what was asserted and circulated regarding the worth of Trump's candidacy was somewhat undermined by mistakes, blunders and associated problems which worked to not only counter the proposed competency of Trump's nomination in the party, but issues which did not bode well for the Republican's election ambitions or aspirations, after Trump's nomination. Two notable bruising's came with a patchy speech delivered by Donald's wife Melania, in which a considerable aspect was plagiarized from an earlier work by President Obama's wife, Michelle, in 2008. Also, celebrity Antonio Sabato Jr. speech in favor of the presumed nominee was overshadowed by a later interview in which he professed to believing in conspiracy theories about President Obama - particularly the lingering notion among right wing elements that the president's christian profile is a front for his presumed, secret Islamic faith. An assertion which - even when confronted with total refutation and facts - is still hotly contested nearly a decade after coming into office by right wing populists.

Former NYC Mayor Giuliani impassioned - even egregious -
speech at the convention focused upon values and terrorism

One of the most distinct - if only second to Trump's own nomination acceptance speech - was found in the fiery, animated rhetoric of Rudy Giuliani; his efforts both in favor of Trump, but also in aid of envisioning a world so filled with violent, unpredictable ferment that only someone of Trump's character and esteemed patriotism could be the one to ensure American security in it. Desiring to paint Democrat's as divisive, he turned his attention to ostensible right wing "one nation" politics in which he proclaimed that the America of time honored values was in danger of disappearing: overtaken by foreign threats and internal problems. More so, the former mayor of NYC even proclaimed that this election was so paramount that there could be "no elections after" - hyperbole, certainly, though delivered with a conviction - among his other statements - which seemed to betray a far more literal vision of near apocalyptic jeopardy in the present and future of America, should Trump not win the November election. His oratory inflamed, it is understood that he forms an integral part of Trump's policy platform on security and terrorism: a role in which he is known as the originator of more contentious policies, as well.

Republican Party Vice Presidential Nomination

As codified in the constitution of the United States of America, the role of Vice President mingles a number of roles, though it has been seen - with a few notable exceptions - as a largely symbolic role in latter times; distinctions afforded either by circumstance - as with the Lyndon Baines Johnson - or by expertise - Dick Cheney - and through conviction of identity, as seen in both Al Gore and Joe Biden. Though the functionality of the role is never to be underestimated, as previously alluded, the relatively organic profile of the vice presidency, when compared to the more mechanistic president's office, has garnered considerable interest in recent times. In this respect, the prospective presidential candidate's choice of vice president is an essential, and sometimes quite telling, necessity of the former's prospective government to come.

Mike Spence, Governor of Indiana, was selected

as Trump's Vice Presidential candidate

Trump's selection of Mike Pence found a seasoned, if controversial and invested, VP pick in the Governor of Indiana. The selection seen as a declaration of intent to ease and, indeed supplicate, the support of social and moral conservatives, Pence was found to be more than ideologically motivated, reliable and suitably charged not only in his opposition to liberal politics, but also to the current Obama administration. An invested advocate of fiscal, moral and social conservatism throughout his career, his support of the Tea Party faction during Obama's presidency has found him ranked among the most particular of the president's legislative critics, as with Obama care, education and the legalization of homosexual marriage.

In his capacity as a Republican policy and lawmaker and governor of Indiana from 2013 onward, Pence seems to have comported himself as a seemingly natural choice for the aforementioned state as its principal executive.

The northern state of Indiana - a historic

conservative bastion amid the democratic north east

As governor, Pence presides over one of the linger curiosities of American politics in the mid-western state of Indiana. Though numbered among the northern states of the north and east, Indiana proposes something of a puncture amid the fault line between the Democratic states of the north, and the Republican states of the south; that being a steadfastly Republican red, as with southern Kentucky, as opposed to its other neighbors. Home to a bastion of working class conservative culture, the state's conservatism has not always worked well for its constituents and its positioning in the wider debate over the legalization of homosexual marriage saw it become the platform of local, counter legislation which permitted denial of business or service to customers - if gay - on grounds of religious conviction: a law stoutly defended by Pence himself and which prompted a number of controversial incidents as the consequences of the law played out in the wider national media. In response to the growing political and social controversy over the issue, Pence grudgingly prompted a revision of the law - ostensibly to tighten definitions and preclude LGBTQ discrimination - in April, 2015.

Indiana's current allocation of votes in the electoral college is eleven and current polling indicates - perhaps predictably - a very strong support for the Republican candidate.