The difference between a contested convention and a brokered convention is enormous. A contested convention is fair, a brokered convention is not. The conditions for my dystopian prediction of four years ago that Obama would run for a third term have gotten better with the Republican establishment planning for a brokered nominating convention in order to deny Trump the nomination. The Republican establishment of course denies the charge, but if they do unfairly and by trickery and back room dealing deny Trump the nomination, Trump will run as a Third Party candidate. My prediction was that Obama would create or seize upon a crisis to run for a third term in order, he will claim, to save the country, and let the 22nd Amendment be fought out in the courts after he is sworn in. A brokered convention would ease his path to another four or eight years in the White House, with a split Republican Party with a Perotista candidate. Consider again just the domestic crises he can take advantage of: Loretta Lynch indicts Hillary and Trump walks away after a rigged brokered nominating convention takes an earned nomination away from him and runs as an independent. Beginning to seem not quite so fanciful anymore. Could Trump win a minority election under such conditions? He could, and we might then see the dissolution, as we know them now, of both the Republican and Democratic Parties. I fully expect to live to be 115, and so this possibility is not something I would welcome, but would probably enjoy writing biting verse about the Trump Party and its seeming irreversible hold on power

Convention suits in browns and blues
First ballot firmly pledged
To Trump and Kasich and to Cruz
While others, unpledged, hedged
First ballot winner not emerged
The second ballot’s free
The delegates toward someone surged
Who could that someone be
The Party bosses took command
The winner, we surmise
Will be someone real close at hand
To whom they hand the prize
The Democrats meanwhile have found
With Hillary in jail
That delegates are now unbound
The winner up for sale
Obama soothes the restive crowd
By throwing in his hat
Despite the fact he’s not allowed
To serve a third term that
He clearly wants above all things
To finish off his job
Becoming first of Yankee kings
To huzzahs from the mob