title:  Is A GOP Civil War Coming? RNC Chair Accidentally Spoke The Truth About 2016 Nomination Process
text: Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus committed the grave Republican sin of being honest during a radio interview recently. While discussing the details of the Republican convention delegates, Priebus   possibly without realizing it   heavily implied something many have been suspecting: the fact that the Republican party will try to steal the nomination from Donald Trump.Priebus was attempting to explain the process of how Republican delegates work, and seemed to be justifying the concept of them not voting to represent the will of the people from their home states. He came right out and admitted that at the later stages of balloting, delegates will not be bound to candidates and can vote for whomever they want to nominate   regardless of the popular vote in the state primaries. The big giveaway, though, was the following statement he gave after that: By the way, this is a nomination for the Republican Party. If you don t like the party, then sit down. The party is choosing a nominee. To say that won t sit well with Trump voters and possibly even Cruz voters is an understatement. Trump s crew won t agreeably sit by only to see the Republican establishment walk away from them and install their  preferred  candidate as the nominee in his place.Reince didn t exactly come out and say it plainly, but he definitely is starting to lay out a framework of plausible deniability when it comes to a possible up-ending of the nomination process. By trying to explain away how a sleeper candidate can be squeezed in at the last minute, and spreading out the blame among many different delegates   some of whom are virtually unknown to regular voters   the RNC can just throw up their hands and say there was  nothing they could do, because of the rules. Many sources have been hinting at either Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney being rolled out as the panic-button replacement for Trump. The importance of this can t be understated. A very sizeable amount of the 2016 RNC delegates were previously in the camp of the Romney/Ryan ticket in 2012, and the odds favor a majority of them jumping ship to one of those two in lieu of Trump if a legitimate opportunity to do so arose.If the Republicans keep on this track and risk it all in an  anything but Trump  move, 2016 could be historical for the fact it might split the GOP permanently.Listen to the full interview where the RNC chair accidentally tells the truth below:[soundcloud url= https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/257440153  params= auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true  width= 100%  height= 450  iframe= true  /]Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty