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Damaging the RNC and Republican establishment would have been helpful to Trump: his candidacy was (or at least was perceived as) an upstart insurgency against t

Damaging the RNC and Republican establishment would have been helpful to Trump: his candidacy was (or at least was perceived as) an upstart insurgency against them. Assuming the RNC emails were actually packed with bigotry (I'm not so sure), the most anti-Trump read which would have emerged out of it might have been something like, "see, all these people like to pretend they're better than Trump but they say the same stuff behind closed doors!" What there would not have been in the RNC emails was a bunch of discussion between party insiders and Trump surrogates/loyalists as to how to tilt the primary race in his favor. This is what made the DNC leaks damaging to Clinton's campaign.

mullingitover 6y ago
If the RNC thought it would benefit them to have their private communications leak, they could've done that without foreign help.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  You keep making the mistake of conflating the 2016 RNC's political fortunes and Trump's. Many Republican insiders probably didn't even want Trump to win the general election as it would mean they'd be frozen out of influence in the party. Remember that guy Paul Ryan? After Trump was elected and showed himself to be an establishment wolf in populist sheep's clothing they've largely mended relations, and the few holdout never-Trumpers have left for other pastures (including the Democratic Party), but it was a very different picture in 2016.
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    > You keep making the mistake of conflating the 2016 RNC's political fortunes and Trump's. You do realize they were on the same ticket, and Trump's fortunes on that ticket had direct, downticket nationwide consequences for the rest of the party?
    - AndrewBissell 6y ago
      You only need to look to the UK's Labour Party for an example where a certain faction of a party's insiders considered it better for themselves for their candidate to lose a general election. Winning is never the only consideration.

mullingitover 6y ago

If the RNC thought it would benefit them to have their private communications leak, they could've done that without foreign help.

AndrewBissell 6y ago
You keep making the mistake of conflating the 2016 RNC's political fortunes and Trump's. Many Republican insiders probably didn't even want Trump to win the general election as it would mean they'd be frozen out of influence in the party. Remember that guy Paul Ryan? After Trump was elected and showed himself to be an establishment wolf in populist sheep's clothing they've largely mended relations, and the few holdout never-Trumpers have left for other pastures (including the Democratic Party), but it was a very different picture in 2016.
- mullingitover 6y ago
  > You keep making the mistake of conflating the 2016 RNC's political fortunes and Trump's. You do realize they were on the same ticket, and Trump's fortunes on that ticket had direct, downticket nationwide consequences for the rest of the party?
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    You only need to look to the UK's Labour Party for an example where a certain faction of a party's insiders considered it better for themselves for their candidate to lose a general election. Winning is never the only consideration.