Those of us who have been in this game for a long time have already been down this path. Some went down this path when Pat Buchanan was making waves. Some did it when it was Ron Paul in 2008 and the Tea Party movement after that.
In each case, the establishment proved they could produce any number of tricks to keep people from having real influence within the party. It isn't an organic organization that listens to its members. It's a giant club, and they will make sure you're not in it.
Here is one example:
In 2008-2009, Ron Paul supporters had organized very effectively to take over the mass precinct meetings. They were successful in many more instances than you would imagine. Yugely successful in fact.
This sent many Ron Paul delegates from their mass precincts to the county and district conventions, where the real fun began. The goal of course was to make it to the state conventions, where the party would vote on the platform, endorse Juan McNoName, and hear other business.
If you are internet-savvy, you can dig up many many accounts of how this shit show went down. You don't need to look that hard in fact.
Here are two examples:
-
In Georgia, the man running the convention skillfully changed the rules in mid-process right there on the stage of the state convention. The establishment GOP also tried to force people to pay for entry into the event, which has a cover charge that is not enforced if some one can't pay for it. The state GOP was not at all shy about their hatred of the crowd that showed up with their US Constitutions in hand to advocate a Constitutional government. The GOP was all too happy to applaud human garbage like Johnny Isakson and cheered for the nomination of Juan McAmnesty.
-
In Nevada, the Ron Paul crowd was so effective that they actually took over the State GOP convention. The people running the convention then told their legacy members to leave the convention. When they did like good little statist sheep and obeyed their degenerate GOP masters, the scum running the meeting then said they no longer had a quorum and therefore must terminate the proceedings. They did exactly that and then rescheduled the convention on the other side of the state many weeks later.
You see, these are just two examples of the malfeasance in the Reprobate Party. The stories of these shenanigans abound, and they aren't hard to find.
Now, you have a few choices. You can either pretend it is possible to reform a broken party that hates America and hates you, or you can accept reality and proceed like an adult.
No one would join the mafia thinking they are going to make it more responsive to the people it fleeces.
Ron Paul won Oklahoma that year.
I believe Ron would have taken that election hands down on the national level. In some newspapers, they didn't even publish the results of his primary numbers, even though they published the results of people who got less than he did.