Photo credit: Michael Vadon (CC-By-SA 4.0)
I have to complement Donald Trump in this regard, he is a masterful propagandist. He’s a shameless liar as well, but hey who cares about the truth when it doesn’t fit one’s narrative right?
He tweeted out after Ted Cruz and John Kasich reached an agreement on Sunday to get out of the other’s way – Kasich would not invest resources in Indiana, and Cruz wouldn’t invest resources in Oregon and New Mexico.
Wow, just announced that Lyin' Ted and Kasich are going to collude in order to keep me from getting the Republican nomination. DESPERATION!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2016
Trump acolyte Sean Hannity had The Donald on last night where he once again called the agreement “collusion.”
Trump is not exactly a master of the English language.
Here’s the thing. Collusion means “secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.” This agreement was not secret, it was announced well in advance of the upcoming primaries impacted. It certainly isn’t even illegal. This is no different than Kasich and Marco Rubio making a similar deal primary to the Ohio and Florida primaries. There isn’t any cheating going on, Kasich and Cruz have both stated they are not even encouraging their supporters to vote for the other. Even if they did that still wouldn’t qualify as cheating.
Both candidates are not at a place where they can only compete in a contested convention. So the name of the game of this point is to block Trump from reaching 1237. Personally I had hoped Kasich would have dropped out by now since he’s only won one state, but he may be better able to compete in against Trump where Republicans are more moderate (not that we’ve actually seen that since moderate and liberal Republicans have favored Trump).
Neither Kasich or Cruz is obligated to help Trump reach 1237. So there is no collusion going on, it’s an attempt to take this decision to Cleveland and a transparent one at that.