Trump WILL lose, I don’t care what anyone says, the bulk of a nation is not as dumb and rotted out as the republican party and base.
But the WHY he lost will vary based on the different factions. This was echoed in a business insider piece:
“But do not hold your breath for any faction of the Republican Party to take that lesson from their impending, devastating loss. Instead, three different factions will each have their own story of why Republicans lost the 2016 election — and each of them will be wrong.”
Basically, the ted cruz wing will blame the loss on not electing a “TRUE Conservative” The tea party wing that wants to shut down the government and throw tantrums will not be disabused by a trump loss, they will continue on not having their TRASH ideas shredded in public for all to see. That is what a Cruz loss would have done, but that will not come to pass.
The establishment wing will blame the loss on having an erratic clown run for the presidency, it has nothing to do with conservative ideas, nothing to do with any REAL discords between what party elites want and the rest of their base and the nation, it’s just that Trump was a one off.
The trump supporter angle was new to me in the article but it makes sense, that wing will blame the sizable chunk of so called conservatives and establishment types that refused to get in line and support Trump.
This is a total and complete death spiral with no clear experiment to show them all how wrong they are.
I disagree the establishment won’t realize that a disconnect between the base and “conservative” ideas/elite’s wishes was to blame. There’s been a million articles written on that subject. They may not make a coherent strategy to fight off the next Trump but there’s no way the thinkers of the party won’t know it was the issue this year.
And the third one isn’t entirely wrong. Yes, Trump will have trouble pulling independents as well, but defections and staying home true conservative and establishment supporters will contribute to his likely loss.
Hillary Clinton was an absolute, had the nomination locked up, certain to be the next president of the US in 2008. It was pre-ordained. But it didn’t quite turn out that way. This election is just version 2.0 of that. Nothing new, vote for me, I am a Clinton, remember Bill? He was awesome so I will be too. That isn’t much of a platform for voters, many of who do not remember the Bill Years.
Trump isn’t a classic republican, or much of a republican at all, and when he tones down the campaign bluster he used in the GOP nomination process, what will he be? A radical republican or a centrist?
Bernie supporters do not like Hillary and they may just choke on their vomit long enough to vote Hillary or Trump depending upon what happens in the future. Or they just won’t vote.
Expect Trump to continue to piss off the conservative faction of the GOP and appeal to the Bern. There are enough people following this election process who have seen both parties anoint their presumed candidate, before the votes were cast, to swing it his way if he is clever. The Bernie surge shows the same dissatisfaction with the democratic party elite on that side.
The assumption that the next president will be decided, not by the voters, but by the elite of each party is the real force behind this election cycle
I actually agree with your critique of my and the articles talk of the establishment. That was a pretty weak argument. They are certainly aware of a discord, it’s he Ted Cruz wing that is the most clueless. The Kasich branch is self aware enough to be able to understand reality, and that there may be nothing they can do to fix the issue any time soon.
Not the same. Obama was black and electable, blacks abandoned Hillary for him in 2008, that is what cost her. She has them back this time. The real story is how well Bernie did this year, not that he lost. There is a rising power in the democratic base, and as more millennials and those that follow them take over the electorate and the old guard dies out, a more left wing democratic party will likely gain sway unless we see real progress in the areas they care about.
This may be better in its own thread but I don’t think you can blame base Republicans (much) for the success of Trump. You can blame the GOP for not realizing how well he would do (but NOBODY thought he’d do this well) and letting the train get out of the station but he’s doing so well in part because he’s attracting voters who never (or rarely) voted in past primaries. He’s also attracting Democrats. I’ve heard numerous times, in person and in interviews on NPR, from people who have said that if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination they will vote for Trump (or vice versa).
There’s a large percentage of voters who are in love with the idea of “shaking things up”. Hillary Clinton came close to falling to the same thing; nobody thought Sanders would do so well when he first started out but he’s outside The Establishment and people have flocked to him. The old guard feminists have probably saved Clinton from defeat.
I think Donald Trump has inspired more disillusionment and wishful thinking than any other candidate in American history.
It’s funny that the party that’s recently claimed the majority of both houses of congress is now considered to be in a “death spiral.” And which party just clarified who their nominee is, and which party’s front-runner is still trying to carve out a definitive win?
The election’s just begun, the Republican’s now have a clear candidate that will only get stronger between now and the convention, and Hillary is still dogged by Sanders.
If I had to bet my life, I would be on Hillary, but the woes on the right and the left are always exaggerated by the other side.
Yeah - Dems/liberals are grossly failing to comprehend just how massive Trump’s support base is, and how hated Hillary is. She’s a total scumbag. I have always voted Democrat, but I will never vote for $hillary (yes, she’s been paying shills to talk her up on Reddit/social media). I’ll probably just write in Bernie even if he isn’t on the ballot as an independent.
But in the end, Trump will win the general and everyone will continue to act shocked by it.
To those saying Bernie supporters will stay home, the effect is worse on the trump side, his negatives are high with almost every sub group in the electorate. Women, MEN, young people, hispanics, blacks, basically EVERYONE. So just because some screwball Bernie or die supporters might jump ship does not imply that Trumps negatives from the rest of the entire nation won’t abandon THAT ship even faster.
I hope I’m not taking this line out of context by snipping out the rest of your post, but I completely disagree with this. I think the more time the general population has to consider the reality of electing Trump, the weaker he will get, not stronger. His brand of bombastic over the top carnival barker played to the dark underbelly of the Republican party, but women, minorities, and a yuge number of thoughtful male voters will be turned off.
And sure, I bet a lot of Bernie supporters, in the heat of the primary fight, say they cannot EVER vote for Hillary. What else are they going to say in that moment? I would bet you dollars to donuts that most will vote for Hillary, or at the worst, not vote at all. I can’t imagine many voting for Trump. He just stands for so much that is the opposite of Bernie. I know they both are seen as “anti-establishment” choices, but that is where the similarity ends.
Social media is a lot harder to control than regular media, and unfortunately Trump’s campaign has been a lot smarter about how they use it than Clinton’s cringeworthy attempts. And yeah, I’m completely fine with the GOP not learning from this election cycle. Maybe we’ll get a new viable third party to replace them after they’ve self destructed.
Now remember: those same pollsters did indeed got it right early that Trump was going to beat the other Republicans, so in this polarized environment I do think that the pollsters are also right about seeing Trump having a good sized support base, but it is not looking to be big enough in the general election.
Sorry, current trends do not support this. Trumps polling has generally gone up since his campaign began. And history shows that Hillarys polling has never gone up in any of her, what it it, 3?, elections. Certainly these trends might not play out, but they do exist.
Lessons schmessons … what will matter is who is left and who can emerge. And what the alternatives are.
Trump has been, for the reasons listed in that article, the existential threat to the party as whole. The coalition between: rural and many working class Whites frustrated and pining for the past in which they could at least rely on having others to look down upon, confident that even with little education they could still have a solid lower middle class life; libertarians; the religious right; pro-business interests; and foreign policy hawks, is broken. Humpty Dumpty man, no putting it back together again.
Assuming the probable (but by no means assured) Trump loss, Senate flip, and House staying GOP, what does the landscape look like? And not just on the GOP side, did Clinton win by pandering to the core Sander supporters or by sticking to what she has stated to date?
There is the possibility that the Democratic party can make the mirror image mistake that the GOP has made with TP elements, and allow their more extreme but highly motivated no-compromise minority control over the larger numbers that are less extreme, giving a group of the GOP to rebrand themselves as more centrist, reject their party’s own extremity, and claim the middle. Paul Ryan is trying to position for that possibility. The Democratic side could easily make the mistake of taking overwhelming support from Black, Hispanic, etc. voters as a given, as they pander to more “progressive” young White college educated voters. A more centrist GOP not shooting itself in the head with those populations, willing to forcefully say no to their more other-fearing elements and not pander to that frustrated and pining White group, would make inroads, enough to even offset non-college educated Whites voting even less than before. They’d still likely win the White rural districts (albeit with lower turnout) and be more competitive in the true battlegrounds - mostly suburban America.