But not yet proven, remember “once the resl campaigning and voting begins, we’ll see him deflate”? The conventional wisdom was still overwhelmingly that. But yes, in any case Spring/Summer 2015 was when sensible, serious candidates who’d be dependent on donor money would have had to start moving in earnest. And even during the not-taking-him-seriously period, the press and media circus around him basically denied everyone else sunlight and air.
He was the frontrunner in the polls but largely treated as a flash in the pan, joke candidate like Michelle Bachmann or Herman Cain. Most of the smart money was on him burning out before the first primary. The prediction markets didn’t take his chances seriously until January 2016.
His mental state appears to not have been helped by his stroke. Much angrier and more right wing than before. I hope Duckworth wipes the floor with him.
Donald Trump is not killing the party. What he is doing is exposing the fissures that were already there. No other candidate has been able to do that. The exit of people like Allen Specter in 2009 should have been the GOP’s warning that the party was starting to enter a dark alley. But they only amplified the rage in an appeal to the tea party. Being the marketing guy he is, Donald Trump saw an opportunity to exploit that dynamic. He has done that to near perfection, confounding experts on both sides of the political spectrum.
The most important takeaway from Donald Trump’s campaign is that the republican party has become a haven for bigots of all stripes. I know plenty of republicans who are not bigots – biased maybe, but I’m also biased. But there are a lot of other people – probably a good 50 percent in the republican party – that have flat out nasty attitudes toward anyone who isn’t white and straight. I mean, on one hand, we have a vulgar, obscene New Yorker who isn’t known for religiosity taking on two Cuban Americans and the son of a former president who’s married to a Mexican, with the latter three all openly identifying with the religious right. And yet it’s Donald Fucking Trump who wins the Solid South. There is no other explanation. Race is a factor with republican voters.
The republican party is trapped. It’s trapped because in the shorter term politicians need the votes of bigots to win congressional elections and to form a ‘base’ constituency in the presidential election. But it’s trapped in the longer run by demographics that just don’t favor them. The republicans can try to basically suppress the vote using 19th Century style tactics. They have and they will continue to do so. But meanwhile, at some point, a party needs ideas. “We’re not that guy” only works for so long.
How is Donald Trump killing the Republican party?
Killing it? I think that’s just hopeful talk of the left-leaning media. I am no fan of Trump, but consider it spun another way.
He’s raising recognition of the Republican brand through controversy, which in the sense there’s no such thing as bad publicity, can actually boost the party. And never forget how strength-focused the (present-day) Republican base’s value system is. Trump, in the right primitive light, comes across as the alpha of all stick-waving alphas. Don’t think that doesn’t fit hand-in-glove with swaths of Republican voters no matter how much they seem to “object”. And don’t think when it comes down to the primaries and deciding whether to back a likely more moderated version of him or face the alternative of a pure-blood Dem in the White House due to Republican fracturing, they won’t be lining up rank and file to shoo him into office.
“Several Republicans, including Florida Gov. Rick Scott, are saying it’s now time for the GOP to coalesce behind Trump as the nominee heading into the general election.” [Breitbart article]
I can see how Trump is popular with the sort of people who use terms like “left leaning media”. As asahi pointed out, Trump has glommed onto that angry, simpleminded, xenophobic segment of the right-leaning population that desperate wants to cling to the fiction that America is best and all powerful. These people view any sort of compromise, or even any real intelligent discussion as “weakness” (which is for Liberal fags). They like Trump because he offers simple solutions they understand - kick out anyone who is different, let the “weak” fend for themselves instead of bringing us down, and bomb the shit out of anyone who fucks with the US of A!.
What will determine if Trump “kills” the Republican party is the general election, not the primaries. The primaries are Trump preaching to the choir. But Democrats and a significant amount of independents and moderate Republicans are turned off by Trump. Most predictions have him losing the general election. But that isn’t guaranteed as Hillary and Bernie have their own issues.
“Left-leaning media” wasn’t well put on my part. I meant the segment of the media that favors the left (though your welcome to interpret it sarcastically).
I disagree with that specificity. I think the Republicans in general have always had a very strength-based value system, and are by extension more willing to overlook those elements that so horrify liberals (shades of bigotry etc) for one because, ironically, his brinkmanship with those topics make him seem even stronger.
You don’t defeat him by measuring him against liberal values. You understand the value system he appeals to and reduce him in that context. For example Narcissism, lack of character, crudeness, are by more general standards (other than maybe the professional wrestling ring’s) always forms of weakness.
Related to this, and apropos to the OP, one has to notice how a good number of very influential right wing sources have come against Trump.
Well, I do see it more like a lot of Trump followers have swallowed the idea that America is not great now.
Actually most liberals told a lot of times in the past to the moderate and establishment Republicans that they were raising a Frankenstein Monster by being enablers of the bigots, when one is not actively confronting them they do not change, they only assume that theirs is the majority view and pulled the party to places where the moderates can not deny that they were not supposed to go.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18639100&postcount=59
Oh for sure narcissism, lack of character, crudeness and other issues should be enough; but it is not accurate to ignore “liberal values” because in reality, regarding tolerance and other issues, they are also values that any American should have. Not only Superman.
The Republican Party is killing the Republican Party. Trump is merely the gun they are holding to their own head.