Trump’s tricks worked when the field was crowded, when the election was in its infancy and when people found him entertaining. It’s no longer entertaining. More people are watching, and more people are starting to ask themselves “Who’s going to run this place? Who’s going to run the Treasury? Who’s going to hire the next Fed chair? Who’s going to lead the Pentagon?” Most sane people, however angry and frustrated they may be, don’t want someone at the helm whose election rallies turn into soccer match riots.
One reason why I’ve predicted the sudden and hard fall of Trump is because Trump will continue to inflict wounds to himself. But the other reason is that Ted Cruz will finally start exploiting those defects in ways that others have not. Moreover, gone are the multi-state races. Cruz can focus on one state at a time. Cruz is like the Nick Saban of political strategy: give him a few weeks to prepare for a single contest, and he will steamroll you.
Okay, I do stand corrected on this one. I guess what I mean is that Cruz now has more time to prepare than he did in the past, when it was one multi-state race after another. He didn’t have much time to cover states where he was losing. He has a lot of time to devote to states where he’s sagging, particularly in contests he thinks he can win. That’s the difference between now and the earlier successive Super Tuesday races.
In any case, I think Trump is in serious trouble. He’s now finding out why it’s important to have a skilled organization at the ground level, and it’s too late to build one on the fly. He built a campaign based on bluster, but his strengths are now going to become his weaknesses.
Every poll of NY in the past month has had Trump at >50%, and Cruz and Kasich at ~20% each. Unless that changes in the next 13 days, he’ll probably pick up 70-80 of NY’s 95 delegates.
If you crow about withstanding the establishment after a win – sure, that makes sense. But he withstood an onslaught by losing to Cruz? That’s like if Kasich were to announce that he withstood Trump yesterday! It’s not worth mentioning!
Because TRUMP basically got the same percentage of the vote as he’d been polling and this in a state which demographically speaking should be one of the worst for him. Keep in mind Wisconsin is dominated by “Minnesota Nice” WASP, Germans, and Swedish moralist types culturally speaking and is heavily impacted with rich suburbanites who hate TRUMP but hate the great unwashed masses who vote for him even more.
TRUMP is but a Sulla or a Von Hugenburg. If Americans don’t get their act together, we’ll have the real thing pretty soon, who is going to make Donald look like Joe Lieberman.
Well, good for him; when he loses the whole thing, he can just say he “withstood” an onslaught – and we can all have it explained to us that, hey, he basically got the same percentage of the vote as he’d been polling, and let’s keep in mind that lots of folks can’t stand him or the people who vote for him! Declare victory and go home!
Wrestling metaphors actually seem appropriate here – except, that this is a real contest, Trump is rejecting the kayfabe script and earnestly trying to win.
I’m not incredulous, other than that someone who supposedly isn’t a Trump supporter sounds exactly like the drunkest of the Kool-Aid drinkers. I’m sure everyone else here gets the joke.
I’ve never seen anyone take being devil’s advocate to this degree. So, c’mon, admit it, you’re voting for Trump, aren’t you?
Not about the things that matter here, government and public affairs. In that area he is a hopeless ignoramus.
Robin Williams was successful in his field, but I wouldn’t have put him in charge of a government. A career in real estate and television is no more relevant.
No. His appeal is mainly to the white working class, but a working-class white is not “the average American,” not any more and not for some time past.
Once the big states that are far less moralistic in demographic composition vote, that is to say states that are far more marked by Celtic fire and Latin vigour then the dessicated pseudo-puritanism of the Anglo-Saxon and the Nordic, the tide will definitely once again turn in his favour. Consider for example that the next few big states are his native New York where millions of Irishmen and Italians are marching behind his banner, Pennsylvania which is the ground zero of the Plutocratic caste’s war against the American working-class unmatched in brutality since Stalin’s attack against the Kulaks, and California where immigration issues are primary.
Certainly they are more the average American then the six-figure neoliberal neocon exurban honourary Likudniks whom the Republican Establishment represents.
I’ve used the online calculators and should he do reasonably well in the remaining states, he should get very near 1,237 and thus be very clearly in the lead regardless of whether he achieves a majority or not.
D