SO WHY HAVEN'T THE TRUMP RIOTS STARTED ALREADY?

I keep hearing that there'll be riots if Donald Trump leads in delegates but is denied the nomination at the Republican convention in July. But Trump won't be denied the nomination in July. He's being denied the nomination right now, mostly because of skilled infighting by Ted Cruz, and also because the party itself is determined to thwart its front-runner.

You've read the stories:

Despite Donald Trump winning Virginia on Super Tuesday, two of three delegates elected in the first district convention here are supporters of rival Ted Cruz -- which could matter if a second ballot were to take place at the national convention.

And:

Moments after announcing that Ted Cruz had swept all 34 delegate slots at the Colorado GOP convention Saturday, the state party tweeted: "We did it. #NeverTrump."

Within minutes, the tweet had been deleted.

And:

Ted Cruz supporters took nearly all of Iowa's 12 national delegate slots up for grabs on Saturday, capping off a huge day for the campaign.

Each of Iowa's four congressional districts voted to send three delegates to the convention in Cleveland, and all but one of those 12 delegates committed to backing Cruz on a second ballot if the race comes down to a contested national convention in July.

"We smoked them," said Matt Schultz, Cruz's campaign chair in the state.

Trump new de facto campaign manager, Paul Manafort, went on Meet the Press yesterday and certainly sounded Trumpian, accusing the Cruz campaign of "Gestapo tactics, scorched-earth tactics."

But Manafort hasn't upped Trump's inside game yet. How inept was the Trump effort in Colorado? The Guardian reports:

In Colorado, the Trump campaign put out mislabelled ballots and would-be delegates made such pitches for support as “Donald Trump! Buy Colorado weed!”

Manafort said: “I acknowledge that we weren’t playing in Colorado and they did.”

That's putting it mildly.

The Trump campaign obviously doesn't know how to do what Cruz is doing right now. But what are the Trumpites much better at than the Cruzites? Making supporters violently angry -- right?

So why aren't there Trump riots now? Why aren't there even threats or hints of physical violence in states where Team Trump is being outplayed by the Cruz forces? Why aren't there even Trump fans out there looking really, really menacing and seeming as if they might engage in violence, even if they don't do anything?

The most we have, as far as I know, is a Colorado Trump supporter burning his GOP registration in the privacy of his own home and posting a video of it (via Gateway Pundit):



That's not very intimidating.

Trump is whining and stomping his feet:

Donald Trump vented Monday over the delegate fight on which his campaign has been repeatedly outfoxed, slamming the situation in Colorado as a "crooked deal."

“Well it really started with Colorado, and the people out there are going crazy -- in the Denver area and Colorado itself -- and they’re going absolutely crazy because they weren’t given a vote, this was given by politicians. It’s a crooked deal, and I see it," the Republican front-runner said in a telephone interview on "Fox & Friends" ...

And tweeting, of course:

I win a state in votes and then get non-representative delegates because they are offered all sorts of goodies by Cruz campaign. Bad system!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 10, 2016

But the rage of his base is what we keep talking about -- yet if there's little or no unrest between now and the convention, why should we assume that the turbulence at and after the convention will get out of control? It might just be a few scattered incidents, and then all these folks will go home and kick the dog.

I know -- losing a state delegate fight isn't like losing the nomination, especially to people who until recently haven't paid much attention to how politics works. But they are paying attention now, thanks to Trump. And they're not rioting. Unless that changes, I think they could be paper tigers in reaction to a Trump-thwarting convention.