GOP convention kicks off as nation reels from more violence

The trouble began when a cohort of anti-Trump delegates collected the requisite number of signatures needed to force a vote on the rules of the Convention, according to CNN.

But then, just moments later, a second voice vote became necessary amidst protests that the first voice vote was an auditory tie.

Trump has seized on the instability, casting recent events as a direct result of failed leadership by President Barack Obama and by Clinton, who spent four years in the administration as secretary of state. That left the insurgents short of the seven states needed to force a roll call, he said.

In Cleveland, he’s got a more hard task: How to reconcile voting for Donald J. Trump after the billionaire argued that the father of Gohmert’s pick, Ted Cruz, was involved in the assassination of the John F. Kennedy.

“[Trump would] lose state after state after state and the media would say that he can’t be beaten … and the media liked to paint me as some whacked-out theocrat”, Cruz explained.

The truth is, though, that Cruz didn’t organize the scuffle at the RNC, at least not directly.

Cruz delegates: State Treasurer Ron Crane (chair of Idaho’s delegation); 1 District Rep. Raul Labrador; former state Sen. Mike Lee, who have been spearheading the efforts to change various rules related to how a Republican presidential candidate is elected.

Still, Cruz told Politico he sees himself as a victim of a media conspiracy that targeted him and Sanders.

A woman arrives at Quicken Loans Arena as preparations take place for the Republican National Convention, Sunday, July 17, 2016, in Cleveland.

Painting a bleak picture of America’s future, Republicans promised a new era of security with Donald Trump as president as they opened a four-day convention against the backdrop of an unsettling summer and deep party divisions.

Cruz won a total of 11 contests to Trump’s 40.

The 44 members of the Washington delegation are overwhelmingly made up of supporters of Texas Sen. Similarly, Regina Thomson, executive director of Free the Delegates, is both a Colorado delegate and Ted Cruz’s state director in Colorado.

Whatever the case, it appears that the anti-Trump movement pretty much fizzled out, and we’re now rounding the final corner on the weird road leading to Trump’s nomination.