JUST A REMINDER: THE GOP IS STILL INCAPABLE OF AGREEING ON AN ALTERNATIVE TO TRUMP

Two guys who probably don't agree on much -- Ace at the greybeard right-wing blog Ace of Spades and Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg Politics -- think Donald Trump could be dumped at the Republican convention.

Ace:

I have heard that there are in fact schemes a-brewing to replace Trump with Ryan at the convention. How, you say? Well, simply by rewriting all the rules to allow delegates to vote as they will, for any candidate.

Now you may say "But that's extreme; they'd destroy the party."

Yes, but there are two competing considerations:

1. Elite GOP opinion-- the Upper Middle Class and Capital Class that controls the party -- is horribly embarrassed by Trump, and, little secret, they run this thing. You vote in it, but they run it.

And the people who run it can change the rules as they like.

2. Trump appears to be a likely loser.

... that's what I take all this judge bullshit to be about -- the psyops necessary to justify the party rewriting the rules and kicking Trump the hell out.

Bernstein:

... it's worth noting: All it would take to dump him in Cleveland would be a vote to free the delegates, followed by having at least half of the convention oppose him on the first ballot.

Technically, they wouldn’t even have to have an alternate candidate. Trump dissenters could vote for various other candidates -- or Mickey Mouse, for that matter -- as long as a total of 1,237 of them don’t vote for Trump.

Remember, the campaigns don't directly choose most Republican delegates. They are bound to a candidate, but may or may not personally support that candidate. And the convention has the final word on its own rules. The bottom line is that a convention majority with the support of the convention chairman -- House Speaker Paul Ryan, in this case -- can do pretty much whatever it wants....

I’m not predicting anything. I’m just saying it'd be great to have a count after the final delegates are chosen this week of exactly how many of them were chosen by Trump and dedicated to him.

Granted, without a candidate to rally behind, the result of defeating Trump at the convention might be chaos. But at some point, does chaos start looking good to some Republicans?

But GOP insiders couldn't settle on a consensus Establishment candidate in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses. They couldn't settle on a consensus anti-Trump candidate when the field began to be winnowed. They couldn't settle on a #NeverTrump strategy -- vote for whoever can win a particular state? put all the chips on Ted Cruz? -- when Trump began sprinting toward the finish line. The most prominent advocate of a third-party challenger, Bill Kristol, fantasized on Twitter about all sorts of A-list names (Mitt Romney, Condi Rice, David Petraeus) until he finally settled on a C-list pundit David French ... who then turned him down.

So it's not that replacing Trump is theoretically impossible for them. It's that they're clearly incapable of collective action that would be in their mutual self-interest.

Ace thinks Paul Ryan would be the replacement nominee. RedState is floating a rumor that Scott Walker would take the gig if the party offered it. But meanwhile, Ted Cruz has the second-highest number of delegates, as well as an overgrown debate nerd's fondness for parliamentary infighting. Oh, and I suppose the threat of convention unrest from Roger Stone and others if Trump is denied the nomination is still on the table.

So Trump's not going to dethroned. The GOP can't possibly get its act together.