Does the Trump candidacy signal a paradigm shift in US politics?

In My Humble Opinion
41

“Leading” a 17-candidate race with 19% of the vote or whatever it is doesn’t mean anything. Trump is the first choice of one out of five Republicans, and the last choice of four out of five; he cannot sustain his candidacy one the field winnows down.

The entire thing is a PR stunt. He’s using the GOP to further his profile. I’m 96% sure of it, anyway.

There is, of course, the 4% chance that Trump really does intend to try to run for President for realsies. I cannot discount the possibility that he’s watched too many movies and is trying the “Finally, An Honest Man Runs For President” schtick. It would not work, because, again, he might impress one in five casual Republicans but will be repellent to the others, and as candidates drop out the Anyone-But-Trump vote will coalesce around whichever other candidate is looking strongest. I feel no need to explain why there’ll be an Anyone-But-Trump movement if he really does run.

42

COULD Trump’s candidacy represent a major shift? Sure, it could… but since neither Trump nor his followers have any clear, consistent ideology, it’s hard to guess what the shift might look like.

Trump is NOT a “Tea Party” candidate; he supports higher taxes.

He is NOT the choice of the Religious Right; NOBODY believes he’s really anti-abortion.

He is not a stealth “white power” candidate; he hasn’t been blowing any racist “dog whistles,” and has floated the idea of picking Oprah as his running mate.
Right now, the only messages he’s putting out are:

  1. Economic nationalism, and

  2. “I’m so cool and so awesome, I can make everything work just through the sheer force if my dynamic personality.”
    That’s it. He has no other ideology, though many of his fans are projecting their OWN ideologies onto him.

How will he improve US foreign policy? Nobody knows- his fans just figure he’s such a forceful tough guy that he can just impose his will, and everyone else will just roll over for him. ISIS and Putin will just meekly do whatever he says, because he’s SO persuasive and charismatic!

How will he balance the budget? He doesn’t know and neither do his most ardent fans. They just figure “The ONLY reason things are out of whack is that we don’t have a whip-cracker in the White House. As soon as we have a caudillo in charge, he’ll just fix everything as an act of Will.”

43

The last three national polls have had him at 28%, 29%, and 30%. That’s a bit more than one out of five.

And he’s not the last choice of the rest. He comfortably wins head-to-head matchups with the rest of the GOP field except, of all people, Ben Carson.

Winnowing isn’t going to propel someone ahead of him.

There won’t be an overt ABT movement, because it would invalidate his commitment to support the nominee and not run as an independent. By signing the loyalty oath, he’s flipped the script.

So basically you’re relying on GOP voters rejecting him in favor of Bush or Rubio or Walker or whoever, because in their heart of hearts, they really want an Establishment figure as the nominee.

The problem is (a) it sure sounds like the GOP base is damned tired of Establishment GOP figures, and (b) if you sweep together all the support for all the Establishment candidates, plus all the undecideds, you still get less than half.

I’m old enough to remember the GOP’s stop-Goldwater efforts in 1964. ‘In your guts, you know he’s nuts, and in your brain, you know he’s insane.’* But that didn’t stop him from winning the nomination.
*Takeoffs on the Goldwater campaign’s “In your heart, you know he’s right” slogan.

44

Getting back to the OP, I think it remains to be seen whether Trump represents a paradigm shift. The thing he does represent is the deliberate evolution of the GOP into a party of stupid, ignorant, angry people, taken to its logical conclusion.

Trump’s followers are mad at both poor and rich people that they regard as parasites on the system. So I think Trump’s candidacy is opening up room for the GOP base to ditch its allegiance to the donor class’ issues of tax cuts, trade deals, and cheap imported labor.

That isn’t gonna turn them into Democrats if Jeb or Rubio wins the nomination, but if there were ever a time for Hillary to come out foursquare against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the time would be now.

45

only inasmuch as it shows the world just how much of a miserable joke US politics are.

46

Steve Schmidt (McCain’s top campaign guy in 2008):

That’s what happens when you’re several years into being a post-policy party.

47

You might have a point, EXCEPT that ethnic and economic nationalism are winning issues all over the world.

Globalization and immigration are NOT just making ignorant American yahoos angry, they’re making millions of Europeans angry, too.

Greeks don’t like foreign bankers telling them what to do.

Austrians don’t want to be overrun by foreign refugees.

Marine LePen and UKIP are not to be taken lightly- they have real followers who don’t break down neatly as “right” or “left.”

MANY nations besides the US are going through a “Screw other countries, and let’s look out for #1” phase. (Or IS it just a phase?)

48

So, are Trump’s positions less objectionable when they come from liberal, white Bernie Sanders (who ALSO wants the borders shut down, and ALSO wants to punish employers who ship jobs overseas)?

49

Sanders isn’t going to win either, so no. Sanders himself is less objectionable because he doesn’t say damn silly things like “I’ll make the Mexicans pay for the wall.”

50

well, this is a weight off my mind:

Phew! What could possibly …

51

Okay, three out of ten. Now. And he wins head-to-head matches against theoretical opponents in 2015.

People will cheerily put their names down for the clown when it doesn’t matter. When it does, his support will shrink. We’ll see how he does in actual primaries, if he’s even in them. And then all of a sudden Trump will be back to real estate scams.

Signing the loyalty oath means nothing; Trump has no intention of keeping any promise, everyone knows it, and there’s no reason whatsoever why a loyalty oath, even if kept, would prevent an ABT movement of Republican backers. His loyalty oath was as meaningful and as binding as any other of the bullshit promises a politician makes, which is to say not in the slightest.

What they will want is someone who isn’t Donald Trump, and if you don’t believe me, I’ve got a hundred bucks that says Donald Trump isn’t going to be the GOP nominee. I am sure Democrats are praying he will be, since the Democrat nominee will carry 75-80 states in an election against Trump.

Whether that means the Trump candidacy - assuming its even a thing - is killed off by an “establishment” Republican or one a little more outside the Establishment remains to be seen. I don’t know what numbers will come up in tonight’s Lotto Max, either, but I am very, very confident that 5-11-24-25-37-41-48 won’t come up.

52

That seems high.

53

He’s either missing ‘%’, or is assuming Trump will annex Canada, Germany and Australia. If he can locate them on a map.

54

Why not Mexico?

Oh, right.

55

I don’t disagree with your broader point, but I’m curious about your assumptions.

You seem to be assuming that none of the other candidates’ supporters will choose Trump when their first choice drops out of the race / is clearly unelectable. I would assume that many of these people would, in fact, choose Trump—somewhere between 20 & 40% of them, at a guess.

As far as supporting him when “it doesn’t matter,” again, you’re asuming unanimity of purpose. I assume many of his supporters are promoting him as a sort of protest vote, but will pull the lever for a less insane candidate. On the other hand, it seems equally likely that some of his supporters are genuine, and it does, in fact, matter: he is a serious, high-profile candidate, and that makes a powerful statement about our country and our values at home and abroad. With luck his exit from the race will make a stronger statement.

I would guess that he does well enough in the first few primaries to stay in the race, though ultimately I can’t see him securing the nomination. If the establishment has to cheat (brokered convention?), they will.

56

I hope he does not run as an independent – that would destroy GOP as Ross Perot did in 1992.

57

I like this, it kind of jives with my thinking. I should like liberals but I don’t really - I don’t tend to really like either side of the political spectrum; I’m probably just part of that vast moderate nameless faceless middle.

I find their out of touchiness either sad or disturbing. I hear people always say things like “uneducated” people like this or that guy. But what they really mean is certain uneducated people - but other uneducated people (immigrants, fast food workers, union people) they’re just too happy to consider them victims. Every time someone says uneducated to dismiss someone’s point of view it seems intellectually lazy and inherently undemocratic considering only 34% of Americans have a college degree.

I don 't really know where I’m going with this either, sorry:(.

58

My first take is that there is a serious weakness of “traditional” Republican contenders.

Jeb Bush is turning out to be a terrible campaigner. Scott Walker, Rick Perry (“Even a stopped clock is right once a day.” Sheesh.), etc., are just as bad.

Someone almost decent like Kasich has a Jon Huntsman, Jr.'s chance in hell of winning.

There is no Romney in this group.

But maybe as the primaries progress, something not horrible will happen.

My second take:

A recent Iowa poll had the 3 leaders as: Trump, Carson and Fiorina. Um, none of them with any relevant experience and significant downsides in one form or another.

Okay, there is something going here. The Republican base is going somewhere, and they are going there fast.

It could be the Tea Party (political) anti-establishment ideology has hit the Presidential level. It didn’t do the GOP any good at the Congressional level, and they are now reaping what they have sowed.

Note that the Tea Party thing is a really bizarre mix. What it originally pretended to be, what it really was and the kind of support it has garnered don’t really align. That Trump is not an ideal Tea Party candidate doesn’t matter. The emotions he evokes among that group is what matters.

Trump probably isn’t all that racist. But he takes advantage of weaknesses in others to get ahead. So he is appealing to racists to get media attention.

59

ISTM that the real power of a Trump comes from creating turnout.

In 2012, 58.2% of eligible voters actually voted. Of those who did vote, it came out Obama 51.1% Romney 47.2%. IOW, the actual vote was 29.7% Obama, 27.5% Romney, and “I didn’t bother to vote” came first with 41.8% of the eligible voters. That is HUGE.

Any candidate who can get out a big chunk of the “I don’t vote” crowd only needs to skim off a smidgen of the mainstream candidates’ typical voters to win.

Total turnout was unusually high in 2008 when Obama was first elected and the typical explanation was that he energized a lot of the “I don’t votes” to vote for him. 2012 the effect on turnout was much less pronounced and Obama’s margin of popular vote victory was less as well.

Bottom line: 2008 taught both sides that unlike the past where elections were won in the middle, now elections are won by getting out the “I don’t vote”.

Anyone campaigning as a charismatic protest outsider candidate, regardless of ideology or affiliation has a heck of a chance of energizing the true swing vote, the one that normally doesn’t vote at all.

Barring a divine intervention by the Kochs’ wallets, I see Trump having a real run at the nomination and the election as well. Note I’m not suggesting that will be a good thing. But I see it as a very plausible thing.

For all the talk about “anybody but Trump”, there’s also a lot of people in this country who are “anybody but Hillary” voters. An election between those two would largely become on each campaign shrieking “Vote or else the Boogey (Wo-)man will win!!”

If the Republican Establishment gets the idea it’ll be able to control Trump or at least stymie his craziest efforts, they may well get behind him as the best way to drive voter turnout through the ceiling and therefore win. And high partisan turnout also has a way of delivering lots of Congressional seats, governorships, and state houses.

60

Sometimes I think his statement the “Mexicans are rapists” might be some sort of weird political genius. It’s sort of pitting the feminists who would never want to appear to be defending rapists against the pro immigrant faction creating some sort of liberal confusion similar to what destroyed Lisa Simpson’s Grammbot.

Not to say that I endorse it in any way - but it is what it is.