What the hell is Trump?

I’m guessing you can’t. Legitimately distilling competing worldviews into a bet takes some work. It can be done. But to be meaningful some search, clarification and negotiation is involved.

http://longbets.org/

You know who do love him? White nationalists. According to the article from the current New Yorker:

This is a fun read :slight_smile: Denial Won't Defeat Trump | RealClearPolitics

The Republican establishment seems to be slowly going through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief, with many politicians and pundits unable to get past the first: denial.

But Trump’s numbers in the polls have gone steadily up. And if you add his numbers in the Quinnipiac survey to Carson’s, you see that a full 40 percent of Republican voters want their party to nominate for president someone who has never run for office before, let alone held it.

This ought to be enough to shock most of the party establishment into Kubler-Ross’ second stage: anger.

Some of our more perspicacious conservative observers have been in stage two for a while, and it’s producing some terrific prose. My favorite so far is the opening line of my colleague George F. Will’s column this week: “Every sulfurous belch from the molten interior of the volcanic Trump phenomenon injures the chances of a Republican presidency.”

I’m guessing the party establishment doesn’t ever want to get to the next stage of grief – bargaining – because the guy who would be on the other side of the negotiating table wrote “The Art of the Deal.” And I’m sure they never want to experience the final two stages: depression and acceptance.

I don’t care for sites that require you to register just to read an article.

“Is that the Republican base”? Um, no, it says right in the same quote that this lady voted for Obama and was not partisan, and hates the GOP establisment, and that she just joined the Party. That pretty solidly defines her as not the Republican base. She’s an independent who is excited by Trump, which, to be fair, turning independents to vote for your party is a good move for your party, as long as you don’t drive away too many existing party voters.

Just how many independents are there to be picked up, versus party voters to be driven away?

Yes, Trump has tapped into a subset of American people, touching on the idea that he’s not a political insider, and he’s most poised to shake things up. And he’s hit certain legitimate concerns of many Americans in a way that is hard to deny. On the other hand, his rhetoric is so polarizing that it also dissuades a lot of Americans. But what shows up right now is the novelty of his brash positions.

We will have to see how that stands up over time, especially as the other Republican candidates get whittled down. Do their voters coalesce behind some other non-Trump candidate, or does his support continue to grow? That is the ultimate question that the Republican party has to sort out.

Trading anecdotes isn’t going to prove much. DinoR’s anecdote was a legitimate response to the claim by Starving Artist that dedicated Republicans would not abandon the party if Trump were chosen. It was a demonstration that at least some would. I doesn’t quantify that amount, but does put the lie to the belief that all the Republican party members would hold their nose and still vote R over Clinton or Biden or Sanders or whomever. But anecdotes can’t quantify that effect, to show how big a hit Trump and the Repubs would take.

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows 28% Trump and - an that’s important - 12% Carson. That’s a solid 40% of Republican voters that support non-politician candidates. Add to that 7% that Cruz attracts and you’re definitely getting close to 50.

So who are the other 53% of Republicans going to vote for?

The moderate republican, Hillary Clinton.

Half: :slight_smile: and half :dubious: in the end one should remember that if Hillary is a lot like Bill then a lot of liberal ideas are going to be compromised a lot. But I do think many moderate Republicans and independents will remember that history if Trump manages to win the nomination.

Oh yes. They’re not all in lock goose step with Trump but a good number of them have voiced their support. Which means the loon Palin fringe is Trump’s base. What a proud legacy.

How does Cruz connect to this? Is he claiming never to have office before, or merely to be as unprepared as if he had not?

He tends to wade in a lot of the same pools of voters that are going heavily for Trump/Carson.

Cruz is living off the loony Tea Party vote. He won the Senate seat pushing himself as a Washington outsider, coming in to fight the Obama liberals and repeal Obamacare. He is not mainstream Republican, but won support because of anti-Obama and anti-Washington business as usual.

His claim to fame is shutting down the government over the budget, and filibustering. He gets cred in the “shake things up” crowd. He’s definitely to the far right of a crowd fighting to go as far right as they can.

Damn, what about a Trump-Cruz ticket? Part of me wants it to see how easy the Dems can win, part of me is afraid they will win. After all, Cruz is my friggin’ senator. Grrrr.

To paraphrase the great Zach Weiner, Trump is so classless he could be a Marxist Utopia.

What Trump is:

So Trump is to post-LBJ immigration and Obama’s presidency as the Kingfish was to the Depression and George Wallace to integration? Meh. Weak parallel.

And the Kingfish was a populist, not a conservative (when those words meant something, I guess).

But an interesting possible angle on it.

… and the Trump steamroller continues: 37% among Republicans. Even (well within the margin of error) with Hillary.

The Morning Consult survey shows Trump leading among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents with 37 percent of the vote, compared with just nine percent for the second-place finishers, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

Among all registered voters, Clinton continues to lead all of her potential Republican rivals, though narrowly. She leads Bush by only a 43 percent to 41 percent margin, and she has just a one-point edge — 43 percent to 42 percent — over Trump. Clinton leads Paul, Walker and Rubio by wider margins.

And isn’t Trump more populist than conservative?

Its probably best to say Long (or say Hugo Chavez) were left-wing populists while say Trump or the FN in France are right-wing populists.

Those numbers will of course change dramatically once Trump is inevitably out of the picture. I would venture a guess that the real surprises may be in the Democratic camp. Like Hillary once more losing the nomination.

I’m surprised that Trump’s championing of Palin, to the point of threatening to appoint her to some unnamed position, hasn’t had negative repercussions. I thought she had more or less lost all of whatever credibility she once had.

Not with his base. She’s still a rock star in those circles.