The worst-case scenario for Republicans is that Trump loses by a margin smaller than Romney’s loss. That will feed the belief that the real problem was the ‘neverTrump’ Republicans, and will be used to ‘prove’ that the alt-right has a better shot of winning elections than the mainstream. This could wind up fracturing the Republican party, or could cause the rise of more alt-right politicians.
On the other hand, if Trump loses big, the mainstream will re-assert itself and the rank-and-file will go along with changes designed to keep idiots like Trump from winning nominations. The alt-right will kick and scream and threaten splintering off to form yet another Buchanan/Perot style 3rd party, but ultimately they’ll quiet down and vote Republican.
If Trump wins it will be even worse for Republicans, because every crazy thing Trump says or does will be hung around the neck of the Republican party. And if he tries to enact some of his crazier policies while Republicans hold the House and Senate, they will be forced to vote against a President from their own party - over and over again. Or they will vote to support him and then really own those policies.
The only way this turns out okay for Republicans is if Trump wins and somehow becomes a thoughtful, moderate statesman. That’s about as likely as Hillary turning into Margaret Thatcher. Otherwise, the Republicans are heading for a crackup, but perhaps followed by a more reasonable, responsible party emerging in a few years.
I think somebody will be doing just what you say. But I doubt it’ll be Trump himself. At least not for all 4 years.
Trump may well parlay all this into his Trump Spews Network. Then select somebody like Arpaio or ??? to be his chosen Authoritarian Party candidate in 2020. There are no shortage of more-or-less ordinary-looking mainstream R politicians with some national name recognition that’d gladly adopt the Authoritarian mantle if it got them elected. IMO a bunch of them are actually Authoritarians now, just wearing sheep’s clothing of one hue or another.
And that’d be true whether the AP was a party of its own, or was merely the most effectively organized faction in the big R tent. The Tea Party’s high water mark was probably 2012 or 2010. They were a well-organized splinter group fully within the Rs. I see the AP as more of the same and the up-and-coming first among equals faction. Just as the “country club republicans” ruled the Rs in the Nixon & Ford era.
I don’t know what on earth makes you think that this is true, but I can tell you it’s not. Donald Trump absolutely can win, and I suspect that the advantage is shifting in his favor as we speak. A strong debate performance, and he take a 2-4 lead in the polls and it would take a colossal collapse for Hillary to get the lead back at that critical stage.
Right, but I am almost certain that this will not happen. It’s wishful thinking by people who don’t understand that their country has changed and that a majority of voters are incompetent.
You are really overestimating the importance of the first debate. The most likely outcome from that debate is that Trump supporters will think Trump won and Clinton supporters will think Clinton won. It would take something really unusual for it to actually move the needle.
Those are different candidates and different eras entirely. Mondale, Kerry, and Romney were all running against strong incumbents. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is not really that strong, and she has weakened considerably over the past 6 weeks. People already have very strong perceptions about both candidates, but that is especially true about a candidate whom they’ve observed in the public spotlight for the past 25 or more years.
I’ll put it this way: Trump is perhaps the worst presidential nominee in recent years. He’s not only the worst nominee in my lifetime but he is the worst in the lifetime of my parents’ generation and among those who are still living he’s probably the worst anyone from the Korean War generation has seen. Donald Trump is an atrocious candidate. And yet, he’s tied with Hillary Clinton, and a growing number of polls in some key states suggest he might actually be winning. What does that tell you?
It tells me that voters are stupid and are not going to be convinced by Hillary’s logical arguments for one thing - that’s for starters. But beyond that, it tells me that voters are just NOT that into Hillary Clinton, and this close to an election, it is fair to say that opinions become attitudes, and attitudes are harder to change than opinions. People are now at the point where they think they know enough about the candidates to start making decisions to vote for them, or not. Hillary Clinton will need a strong debate performance. She will need to show more than her knowledge of the issues – she will have to convince voters that she is a real person with real convictions. Donald Trump could mishandle moderator questions and meltdown - that’s a distinct possibility. But I would not rely on that. This debate is going to be the most watched, and possibly the most watched debate or even the most watched TV program in American history. If Hillary stumbles in the eyes of voters - not pundits but voters - it is probably going to be very difficult for her to recover.
Getting on track with the thread, I think that a narrow Trump defeat could be anything from a noisy loss to outright political violence. Honestly, with things as they are now, I don’t see Hillary winning big. I think it will come down to a hand full of states, and they are all going to be relatively tight in terms of the percentages. The best I (we) can hope for is that Hillary sweeps battleground states so that the path to a contested election victory is statistically unlikely.
A larger question is, if Trump loses a tight election by say 1-2 percent in two or three key states, I wonder how more mainstream republicans will handle this. How will Paul Ryan act? How will John McCain act? To Trump supporters these guys are also on the enemies list, but it will be interesting to see if they unite with Democrats in supporting the outcome of the election or do they try to pretend that they’re on vacation in French Polynesia somewhere and say nothing?
A narrow Trump defeat would be a nightmare, and it’s hard to say how this would impact the republican party. However, senators and representatives tend to care most about how their voters in their districts vote. If Paul Ryan, John McCain, and Marco Rubio win comfortably, then that would go against the grain of the alt-right, regardless of what happens in the national election. Much of the vote for Trump is actually against Hillary Clinton. They’re not really a strong ideological movement – at least not yet in 2016. That could definitely change, though.
I actually think that Trump winning narrowly just might be the thing that kills off the republican party once and for all – that’s at least one strong possibility. He would enter the White House with questionable legitimacy in the eyes of many voters. He would be surrounded with ideologues who are not necessarily on the same page – Mike Pence and Steve Bannon are not necessarily bed fellows in my view. But they’re on the same team. Can people like this coexist?
That’s an important question because Donald Trump is quickly going to find that congressional representatives and senators can do whatever the hell they please, and they may not be motivated to help Trump accomplish anything. Take Ted Cruz, for instance – do you think he’s going to be eager to support legislation that Donald Trump proposes? He might, but I could also see him filibustering. And I would be careful about writing Cruz off – if Trump becomes highly unpopular Cruz could become a cult hero with solid support on the right and begrudging admiration on the left.
Trump in victory might be the worst thing that could happen to republicans. The bark at the moon right wing would actually have to accomplish something in the eyes of voters. I don’t see President Trump accomplishing much because at the end of the day, I don’t think the alt right really shares the values of the people. Unfortunately, people have to be convinced of that first, which is why I give Trump 50/50 odds at this point.
At least partially because the white supremacists never went away, and the Republican party never fully excised them, and Trump has been directly appealing to them since his 2011 birthering.
I’d go with magical thinking actually. The range of probabilities on oddschecker is 38-42% with the ‘mode’ being 6/4, most common quote, 40% (and similar a couple of days ago too when you posted that). That’s far enough from ‘all but certain’ in my book to suspect how realistic a view a person saying that has in general.
But OK sure say Trump loses narrowly, which is altogether plausible. Say it comes out same as the RCP ‘no toss ups’ map right now, 293-245, or even add a very plausible state or two (Clinton’s RCP avg advantage is <1% in both NV and NC, including stale polls from when she was further ahead nationally), 272-266. The current popular/EV skew means Trump could do that still coming up a 1% or more short in the popular vote (I don’t worship at the altar of Nate Silver, people take his model’s outputs too seriously IMO and often misunderstand them as well, but his analysis agrees Trump is the more likely of the two to win EV while losing popular, or come closer in EV than popular if it’s close in both).
One effect is in Congress. If the race ‘reverts’ (under the somewhat pro-Clinton biased idea it would) to where it was a few weeks ago, Clinton probably enjoys a Senate majority to start, far from filibuster proof, but where the Democrats would have leverage to at least threaten expanding the ‘nuclear option’ to Supreme Court picks. Where the race is now it’s more likely the GOP holds on barely to the Senate and her flexibility in nominations would be diminished significantly. Arguably the biggest policy difference between not-really-Republican Trump and Clinton (not basic fitness finger on the button stuff) is the Supreme Court, the main rallying cry telling conservatives to hold their noses and vote for Trump. That would dampen some of that difference. Bernie-ite tax and spend stuff Clinton is at least saying she supports is not going to pass a GOP House, nor likely to result in a 2018 groundswell to flip it. Same even for some stuff Trump is saying.
I would expect some claims of election fraud by Trump core supporters and him to at least play footsie with it, but I don’t really expect a Mexico 2006 type thing*. The question on the GOP side IMO is more about whether Trump himself could remain a contender inside the GOP by finishing very closely, rather than it being really critical or damaging what kind of tantrum he might throw, except to discredit himself. In recent decades you’re a loser and that’s it as a presidential contender if you lose once, but there’s a possibility IMO Trump could defy that, as ‘leader of the opposition’ not even so much the GOP (he’s not going to be giving marching orders to Ryan directly) but his ‘movement’.
A close Trump loss would probably mean the Republicans would retain control of the Senate and feel entitled to continue blocking court appointments since Hillary would have been elected with less than 50% of the vote.
Trump will be 74 years old in 2020, and when you’re 70, four years is a long time.
He’s despised by the GOP establishment, which if Trump loses will make rules changes to prevent Trumps from steamrollering the establishment preference.
Win or lose, Trump will be richer and more famous for having done this, so mission accomplished. I am not sure that would be true of a second go.
At least as much that neither party has done much for the working class during the working lives of anyone under age 60. The Rs have been a wall-to-wall disaster and the Ds have been at best a weak countermeasure for any working class person regardless of color. Couple that with the Rs having captured the cultural conservatives despite it being directly against their economic interests to vote R.
What you get is a large base that just wants to protest vote. Then the Rs screwed up by fielding a field of 5 (or more) middle-of-the-pack generic contenders who split each other’s votes, leaving the protest crowd as the single biggest constituency.
As a result the R protest voters are bigger and noisier than the D protest voters. Had Sanders won the D nomination as well, we might be surprised at how many closeted Leftists suddenly find their voice when they think too there’s safety in numbers.
Treats non-white people unfairly when they encounter them, most likely. They advocate for harmful policies. But far more importantly, they teach their children a false, harmful, and hateful ideology which makes them much less likely to be able to successfully integrate into modern society in a positive way.
Are you saying they aren’t very likely, or that they are certain? It’s not an important part of my point, but I say “most likely” rather than “certain” because I’ve known a few white supremacists who were absolutely terrified of black people, and in person they didn’t treat them differently out of fear.