Yeah, it’s not at all clear that he would lose. It’ll be interesting to see what direction Trump goes in now that Bannon is out of the White House. It could be that Trump tries to become a slightly more conventional republican and builds a pro-business, anti-tax, anti-regulation coalition that would be rather formidable. But I don’t know if he has anyone around him who knows how to work with Congress. Preibus might have been that guy but he’s obviously out of the picture now. If he were smart, he’d probably find a former GOP congressman-turned-lobbyist who could smooth things over between the White House and Congress.
As to your point above, I think Trump does have a floor with racists. There’s a significant percentage of Republicans who are either outright racist or who have deep racial anxieties. More than half of the party, I’d guess, and perhaps significantly more. His poll numbers might look bad, but poll numbers on approval rating are completely different from how candidates and parties stack up in one-on-one election contests.
Don’t just look at Charlottesville; look at the election on November 8th, 2016. Donald Trump was the favored candidate of racists like David Duke for a reason. People knew what they were voting for. That doesn’t mean everyone who voted for Trump is a racist, but they knew he had violated all kinds of taboos with regard to race in a modern, post-1960s presidential election and they voted for him anyway. So at minimum, that tells me that their concern for his racist sympathies was rather low.
I consider you one of the most sensible and articulate Dopers. I can’t believe you still think Trump is capable of behaving like a normal human being, let alone a normal President.
Conventional? Coalition? Based on what?? The man thrives on chaos and conflict, does not trust anyone (except family), and will not take direction or advice because he believes that he knows more than anyone and cannot make a mistake.
Trump has no reason to call for violence. He can’t make money from this or receive louder plaudits of the crowd at a campaign rally or even reverse something Obama did. He has no interest in white supremacy as an ideology, he just likes its supporters, because they voted for him and cheer him.
Trump calls violence because he is a petty small man who hates when anyone stands up to it. Trying to look for a sound “reason” is completely misreading him.
Of course Trump didn’t say ‘go out and beat up a journalist.’ But he certainly put in a lot of effort to make the case that journalists are very, very bad people who are working hard to harm the country. What possible response could a true patriot have?
He has a vested interest in white supremacy. He’s a racist from back in the days when his apartments put a little “C” on the applications of black prospective tenants so that they could be rejected. He’s a racist from whom his casinos have to hide all the black employees whenever he comes down to the floor. He’s a racist who cut his political teeth in the racist lie of birtherism and praised the felon Arpaio for spending Arizona resources to Hawaii to try to prove a racist lie. He’s a racist who said the Mexican government sends us their rapists and thieves and murderers. I think he credentials as a white supremacist are impeccable.
To be clear, I agree that he’s personally a racist, I just don’t think he cares enough about white supremacy as an ideology to put any effort beyond occasional tweeting/speechifying into furthering it. The only things he appears to care about enough to actually expend real effort are making money, inflating his ego, and attacking his ‘enemies’.
I agree. He has no principles except self-aggrandizement and making money. That’s it. He doesn’t care about any ideology past whatever immediate notoriety (i.e., “ratings”) he gets from it and will turn instantly like a greased weathervane in the direction that keeps him on the front page and/or furthers the Trump Financial Empire.
But the problem is that when his aggrandizement comes mostly from him saying things that make the white supremacists cheer him loudly, those same statements cause those same supremacists to do other things in the world. Things like lynch, burn, protest, etc.
And to the degree those yahoos become more politically vocal, more politicians will emerge to seek those votes.
If things continue in the direction they are going today I will not be surprised to see 30 or even 60 Trump mini-me’s running for various white rural congressional seats. And given the demographics in the seat they’ll choose, it’s not inconceivable that they’ll have decent success in getting elected.
The bottom line being that Trump’s seeking aggrandizement doesn’t just end with that warm feeling in the center of his lizard brain. It has large and growing effects in the outside world.
Trump, whether wittingly or not, is rapidly moving the Overton window in a new and very dangerous direction. That Ouija doesn’t just move on the traditional left/right dimension. It also moves along the +/- authoritarian direction and the +/- racial tolerance direction.
You are correct. The fact that he has no principles, no inner core beliefs, and refuses to take any position that might lose him a vote has completely legitimized white supremacist behavior. He has no understanding of the role of the president as a moral leader and if he did, he still wouldn’t want anything to do with it because that would require possibly alienating some voter somewhere. He is a tower of slimy jell-o.