Reuters is not great for absolute numbers but is great for trending and digging in there is interesting.
Since 7/23, among “lean to” to “very” conservative and “Tea Party” support for Trump has slightly gone down (from 68 to 63%), support for Clinton has gone down (from 18 to 11%), and “refused” plus “other” has gone up (from 11 to 21%).
Conversely “lean to” to “very” liberal and including “likely Democratic primary” has had those stating “refused” plus “other” dropping from 9 to 5%. Trump started out with an insignificant number there and remains so (from 4 to 1%).
Looking at Trump’s essential core group - White High School or “some college” “likely voter” that “refused” plus “other” group has grown from 15 to 25%.
Yes his support is about hate … of Hillary and of “Other” … but his path requires minimally that a group of White non-college educated often don’t vote voters actually come out to vote for him. Losing more of them into the “other” and “refused” groups does not look like that is going to happen … and I don’t think they will vote Johnson either.
They should attach teleprompters to his hair system because when Trump is unscripted, he is his own worst enemy:
Instead of letting the Khan speech blow over, Trump goes on the attack insulting the mother of a war hero. “If you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say, she probably – maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say, you tell me.”
Khizr Khan is now the headline on cnn.com very effectively attacking Trump’s character.
And Trump demonstrates his cluelessness on foreign policy saying Putin won’t go into Ukraine even though Putin already has. :smack: “He’s not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want.”
I saw this on Facebook and assumed it was a made up, because it’s way too on the nose. Caught in an obvious lie, and then brag to get out of it. But it is real and from an interview this morning:
"And think, personally, I think he made a deal with Hillary where he gets a job, because he’d like to – because Michael Bloomberg has wanted to run for president for probably as long as you have known him and guess what? He never had the guts to do it. And now I see this guy up on stage saying negative things. He knows nothing about me. He’s never been to my office. I don’t know him well.
STEPHANOPOULOS; You played golf together.
TRUMP: Maybe once.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Here’s what he hit you on in the speech…
TRUMP: And I hit the ball a lot longer, and a lot better."
Holy shit. That’s insightful into the man’s mind. He’s trying to claim he didn’t know the guy, that it’s to his advantage to stick to that lie - but he had to work in the second part which undermines his lie just so he can claim to be better at the thing that he doesn’t want to admit took place. And it’s such a trivial thing to be better at. It’s like saying “I’ve never met him but… we compared biceps and mine are bigger.”
That’s an insane level of narcissism, it makes you wonder how he’s a functional human being. I guess if you inherit a shitload of money, people take you seriously even if you’ve never deserved it.
Edit: As per the post below, yeah, it’s probably not as damning as I’m taking it, since he could be claiming to have met him in a not very personal sort of way. But he’s made statements before where his need to claim superiority actually undermines some point he’s made.
TRUMP: OK, well, he’s there in a certain way, but I’m not there yet. You have Obama there. And frankly, that whole part of the world is a mess under Obama, with all the strength that you’re talking about and all of the power of NATO and all of this, in the meantime, he’s going where – he takes – takes Crimea, he’s sort of – I mean…
There’s that old joke about the gorilla, could play golf, hit the ball 300 yards, right to the green, right next to the hole. Pulled out his putter, walked up, and hit the ball 300 yards…
If I read that interview in a novel where the character was being developed as an incompetent blowhard of a presidential candidate, I would think that the author is not being realistic about it.
Manafort was on one of the Sunday morning programs, denying that the Trump campaign had anything to do with watering down the Ukraine proposal. You’d think would have given the same denial, if they had any sort of campaign discipline.
Sure, it’s absurd–but it’s an absurdity that pleases many of his fans. Of course he will be saying and doing exactly the same stuff he’s been saying and doing all along, but the fans love the braggadocio of ‘now I’m going to take off the gloves!’
Since this whole phenomenon began, I’ve been hoping someone will make a video montage of movie/TV examples of Fans of The Bully–you know, the moments when Biff’s gang or Scut Farkus’ toady Dill encourage their guys to get meaner. It could be intercut with any of the dozens of scenes of Trump fans egging him on that have come out of the rallies and Convention.
Might engender a touch of shame in a few who aren’t fully in love with the Bully-in-Chief.