Opinion
Commentary
Let Me Ask America a Question
How has the ‘system’ been working out for you and your family? No wonder voters demand change.
By Donald J. Trump
On Saturday, April 9, Colorado had an “election” without voters. Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred.
In recent days,
something all too predictable has happened: Politicians furiously defended the
system. “These are the rules,” we were told over and over again. If the “rules”
can be used to block Coloradans from voting on whether they want better trade
deals, or stronger borders, or an end to special-interest vote-buying in
Congress—well, that’s just the system and we should embrace it.
Let me ask America a
question: How has the “system” been working out for you and your family?
I, for one, am not
interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of
political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club—the
consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special
interests—grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more
isolated.
No one forced anyone
to cancel the vote in Colorado. Political insiders made a choice to cancel it.
And it was the wrong choice.
Responsible leaders
should be shocked by the idea that party officials can simply cancel elections
in America if they don’t like what the voters may decide.
The only antidote to
decades of ruinous rule by a small handful of elites is a bold infusion of
popular will. On every major issue affecting this country, the people are right
and the governing elite are wrong. The elites are wrong on taxes, on the size
of government, on trade, on immigration, on foreign policy.
Why should we trust
the people who have made every wrong decision to substitute their will for
America’s will in this presidential election?
Here, I part ways
with Sen. Ted Cruz.
Mr. Cruz has toured
the country bragging about his voterless victory in Colorado. For a man who
styles himself as a warrior against the establishment (you wouldn’t know it
from his list of donors and endorsers), you’d think he would be demanding a
vote for Coloradans. Instead, Mr. Cruz is celebrating their disenfranchisement.
Likewise, Mr. Cruz
loudly boasts every time party insiders disenfranchise voters in a
congressional district by appointing delegates who will vote the opposite of
the expressed will of the people who live in that district.
That’s because Mr.
Cruz has no democratic path to the nomination. He has been mathematically
eliminated by the voters.
While I am
self-funding, Mr. Cruz rakes in millions from special interests. Yet despite
his financial advantage, Mr. Cruz has won only three primaries outside his home
state and trails me by two million votes—a gap that will soon explode even
wider. Mr. Cruz loses when people actually get to cast ballots. Voter
disenfranchisement is not merely part of the Cruz strategy—it is the Cruz
strategy.
The great irony of
this campaign is that the “Washington cartel” that Mr. Cruz rails against is
the very group he is relying upon in his voter-nullification scheme.
My campaign strategy
is to win with the voters. Ted Cruz’s campaign strategy is to win despite them.
What we are seeing
now is not a proper use of the rules, but a flagrant abuse of the rules.
Delegates are supposed to reflect the decisions of voters, but the system is
being rigged by party operatives with “double-agent” delegates who reject the
decision of voters.
The American people
can have no faith in such a system. It must be reformed.
Just as I have said
that I will reform our unfair trade, immigration and economic policies that
have also been rigged against Americans, so too will I work closely with the
chairman of the Republican National Committee and top GOP officials to reform
our election policies. Together, we will restore the faith—and the franchise—of
the American people.
We must leave no
doubt that voters, not donors, choose the nominee.
How have we gotten to
the point where politicians defend a rigged delegate-selection process with
more passion than they have ever defended America’s borders?
Perhaps it is because
politicians care more about securing their private club than about securing
their country.
My campaign will, of
course, battle for every last delegate. We will work within the system that
exists now, while fighting to have it reformed in the future. But we will do it
the right way. My campaign will seek maximum transparency, maximum
representation and maximum voter participation.
We will run a
campaign based on empowering voters, not sidelining them.
Let us take
inspiration from patriotic Colorado citizens who have banded together in
protest. Let us make Colorado a rallying cry on behalf of all the forgotten
people whose desperate pleas have for decades fallen on the deaf ears and
closed eyes of our rulers in Washington, D.C.
The political
insiders have had their way for a long time. Let 2016 be remembered as the year
the American people finally got theirs.
Mr. Trump is a
candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
