Please tell me why you think Trump couldn't beat Hillary in the general election? Because I think the exact opposite: that he's the ONLY one of them who would beat her.
Hey Tilted!
- Thread starter vraiblonde
- Start date
Tilted
..
I think that doing so would require me to get into the merits of Mr. Trump as a potential president (and perhaps why I think he's gotten the support that he has).
So... let me get back to you. First I have to get permission from someone to break the promise I made to them.
I'll do that as soon as I can, hopefully by later today.
So... let me get back to you. First I have to get permission from someone to break the promise I made to them.
I'll do that as soon as I can, hopefully by later today.
Tilted
..
Sorry for the delay vrai. Now that you've lost interest I'll share some of my thoughts 
Before I do that though, and because you may not bother to read the volumes I'm likely to write, I suggest we have a friendly wager. If you think that Mr. Trump would win the general election (assuming he wins the nomination), you can take that position and I'll take the other side. We can make it a group thing if you want, it would be a good excuse for some of us to get together and commiserate (or celebrate) after the election. Those who think Mr. Trump will win can match up with someone who thinks he will lose, and whoever is wrong buys lunch or dinner or something. You can pick a time and place that works for most people.
Good idea? (Or would I be the only one with some sense, I mean... the only one betting against Mr. Trump winning?)
Before I do that though, and because you may not bother to read the volumes I'm likely to write, I suggest we have a friendly wager. If you think that Mr. Trump would win the general election (assuming he wins the nomination), you can take that position and I'll take the other side. We can make it a group thing if you want, it would be a good excuse for some of us to get together and commiserate (or celebrate) after the election. Those who think Mr. Trump will win can match up with someone who thinks he will lose, and whoever is wrong buys lunch or dinner or something. You can pick a time and place that works for most people.
Good idea? (Or would I be the only one with some sense, I mean... the only one betting against Mr. Trump winning?)
mAlice
professional daydreamer
Sorry for the delay vrai. Now that you've lost interest I'll share some of my thoughts
Before I do that though, and because you may not bother to read the volumes I'm likely to write, I suggest we have a friendly wager. If you think that Mr. Trump would win the general election (assuming he wins the nomination), you can take that position and I'll take the other side. We can make it a group thing if you want, it would be a good excuse for some of us to get together and commiserate (or celebrate) after the election. Those who think Mr. Trump will win can match up with someone who thinks he will lose, and whoever is wrong buys lunch or dinner or something. You can pick a time and place that works for most people.
Good idea? (Or would I be the only one with some sense, I mean... the only one betting against Mr. Trump winning?)
This has the potential of becoming an interesting thread. Personally, I loathe Trump, but I do think he's going to be our next President. I said the same thing about Obama. I think it will be interesting (to me) to see if I call it right again.
Sorry for the delay vrai. Now that you've lost interest I'll share some of my thoughts
Before I do that though, and because you may not bother to read the volumes I'm likely to write, I suggest we have a friendly wager. If you think that Mr. Trump would win the general election (assuming he wins the nomination), you can take that position and I'll take the other side. We can make it a group thing if you want, it would be a good excuse for some of us to get together and commiserate (or celebrate) after the election. Those who think Mr. Trump will win can match up with someone who thinks he will lose, and whoever is wrong buys lunch or dinner or something. You can pick a time and place that works for most people.
Good idea? (Or would I be the only one with some sense, I mean... the only one betting against Mr. Trump winning?)
Sure - it would be good to see you again.
And I am still interested, so fire away.
Trump, on his own, would be unbeatable in both the primary and the general. Unfortunately every time I look at the news, or Buzzfeed, or Facebook, there is mass hysteria and nonsensical proclamations that Donald Trump is the anti-Christ (My GOD!! He quoted - QUOTED!!! - Mussolini!!! On Twitter! TWITTER, I say! He must be stopped!!!). When the village people get out their torches and pitchforks and start whirling dervishly, I am inclined to oppose them - regardless of what they're all jacked up about - but as a general rule insane mobs get their way. So I no longer think Trump will win, and I'm pretty sure Hillary Clinton will be our next president.
Which is too bad.
Hijinx
Well-Known Member
If Trump isn't the winner of the primary he has certainly poisoned the water for anyone else.
He has placed himself in the position now of being the last hope against Hillary.
Tilted
..
You asked, so here goes an hour of my life I'll never get back...
I wouldn't say that Mr. Trump absolutely couldn't win the general election unless I was being hyperbolic (which I am sometimes), there's always the potential for something to happen that would greatly alter the situation (e.g. Mr. Bloomberg running as an independent). But I think his chances of winning would, without some kind of game changer like that, be very slim. He'd probably have a better chance against Mrs. Clinton than against Mr. Sanders though, she's quite the flawed candidate in her own right. Still, going in, I'd make her the heavy favorite.
I’m not going to go into all of the problems I myself have with him as a candidate. They can wait for another time and, anyway, many of them probably don't hurt his electoral prospects and that’s what’s at issue here. Some of those (as I see them) problems probably even help him as a candidate; they make him a better politician if, in my view, a worse leader and potential President.
We start with the electorate. The presidential year electorate is very different than the off-year electorate. As I posted in the other thread, it's been averaging about 45 million extra voters as compared with the electorate in non-presidential year. And the composition of that electorate is generally different in a way that benefits Democrats. At this point (and going forward, without significant ideological / position shifts within the parties) winning a presidential race is an uphill climb for a generic Republican candidate. Changing demographics are working against them - more young people voting, more minorities voting, in particular more hispanics voting. Among other things, President Obama accelerated the movement of those groups into the pool of actual (rather than just eligible) voters.
I believe the generic Republican candidate has one significant advantage this year though: An enthusiasm gap. I think Republicans are, all other things being equal, more likely to be more excited about this election and motivated to vote. I think Mrs. Clinton exacerbates that problem for Democrats - she doesn't get them fired up in the way that President Obama did during his first campaign. Mr. Sanders, on the other hand, does. I think he would reduce the enthusiasm gap. The Supreme Court vacancy, depending on how it plays out of course, has the potential to meaningfully affect that enthusiasm gap as well.
Mr. Trump would no doubt bring additional enthusiasm with a subset of the Republican electorate. But he would also, to a great degree, negate the enthusiasm problem that Democrats might otherwise have (and he'd make some regular Republican voters less enthusiastic). He's scary enough to motivate a lot of them to vote even if their own candidate or the general state of things didn't do so. That effect (i.e. the enthusiasm bump that Democrats got from Mr. Trump being the Republican nominee) would be bigger if Mrs. Clinton was the candidate, with Mr. Sanders there'd be a bump but they'd be starting with more aggregate enthusiasm to begin with. So one problem with Mr. Trump as the nominee is that it mitigates a significant underlying advantage that Republicans have going in this time - an advantage which, frankly, Republicans almost have to have to win a presidential election given the current make-up of the prospective presidential year voting pool.
Moving on from the enthusiasm issue, Mr. Trump has what I see as a limited ability to pull in large blocks of new supporters (at least, on-net). Yes, he has great charisma and with it the ability to effectively mesmerize people; that quality will continue to help him pull in new supporters . He has a well-rehearsed, and thus credible, bravado. And he has, over decades, honed an ability to project power and greatness whether or not there’s been substance behind that projection in a given context (sometimes there has been, sometimes not so much). He is a great salesman and, well, a great politician. He’s one of the best we’ve seen in a long time, so good a politician that many seem to see him as not really being one.
But stepping back to look at the full arc of his candidacy thus far, I would say that a big part of what success he’s had has been driven by the basic strategy he's chosen. He's a bomb thrower - a relentless, impenitent, serial bomb thrower. In the present context and circumstances (e.g., with a still-wide primary field) that's worked for him. Being a bomb thrower can work up to a point, it can create a good bit of support - enthusiastic support. And it can do it fairly quickly. Some people will think that the bombs you're hurling are well aimed, that they're hitting deserving (perhaps heretofore insufficiently targeted) targets. Others will just like watching the show; we are drawn to fireworks and chaos and carnage.
There is, however, a big problem with the bomb thrower strategy, especially when it’s adopted this wholesale and implemented this energetically. Bombs hit people. Whether the targets are deserving or not, many of them are potential voters. Further, bombs do more than hit their intended targets, they often do collateral damage as well. Mr. Trump doesn't just use bomb throwing as a weapon in his political arsenal. It isn’t just a tactic he uses sparingly. It is, along with some other things I won’t get into now, the core of his campaign strategy. Over time the number of people that have been hit by some of the bombs he's thrown, or who relate strongly with those who have, will grow. Or democratic rhetoric and attack ads will make them more aware that they’ve been targeted by him.
It's one thing for an uber bomb thrower like Mr. Trump to garner plurality support from a subset of a single party. It's quite another for them to garner majority support from the entirety (or a larger subset) of the national electorate. The math doesn't work in a general election. There's a big difference between, e.g., a third of a half of a half (in a primary) and a half of three-quarters of one (in a general). The former is one-twelfth, the latter is three-eighths. Being able to get to the one doesn’t mean that you’d be able to get to the other.
Unless he becomes a completely different person (which would cost him some of the support that he's already gotten and the enthusiasm of some of that support), his aggregate support will quickly more or less reach its peak - and that peak won't be enough to get him elected. As time goes on his ability to net-add support diminishes. Those bombs that he continues to throw will continue to hit new people or people that new people can relate to, the damage they do will continue to add up. He's already built up quite a range of people that won't consider him - indeed, that will be highly motivated to come out and vote against him, they include large demographic swathes and large ideological swathes
On the other side of the equation, the strategy - bomb throwing - isn't one that is going to continually draw in more and more supporters as well as other strategies can. People aren't going to wake up one day and decide that, oh yeah, I really like the bomb throwing, I think I'll support him now. No, the people that like the bomb throwing either already support him or will soon do so. (Of course, as the nominee he’d pick up a great deal of support for the general election just because he’s the only option versus the Democrat’s nominee. Some of that support would be begrudging, but he’d pick it up by default.)
Yes, Mr. Trump will likely pull in some Democrats that other Republican candidates would not. But I don't think all that many, not as many as some seem to expect. To the extent he does, that will only be offsetting the Republicans that he will lose that others would not. I think there's a wider range of Republicans that he might lose than there are Democrats that he might gain. A number will see him as quite dangerous or, at any rate, not what they want in a President - for ideological reasons or for other reasons. It's anecdotal (and I don’t base my substantive assessments on this, it only reinforces my own thoughts), but quite a few of the people that I know - people that have always voted Republican in the past - have indicated that they would not vote for him in the general. If it came to that they just wouldn’t vote or would vote for a third party candidate. And among the people I know, he’s already lost supporters that he had earlier on - because of one thing or another that he’s said along the way. He scares people, many Republicans included. Again, the victims of thrown bombs add up over time. And being the victim of a single thrown bomb (or relating to someone who is) can outweigh the delight of having seen a hundred bombs thrown.
(character limit
)...
I wouldn't say that Mr. Trump absolutely couldn't win the general election unless I was being hyperbolic (which I am sometimes), there's always the potential for something to happen that would greatly alter the situation (e.g. Mr. Bloomberg running as an independent). But I think his chances of winning would, without some kind of game changer like that, be very slim. He'd probably have a better chance against Mrs. Clinton than against Mr. Sanders though, she's quite the flawed candidate in her own right. Still, going in, I'd make her the heavy favorite.
I’m not going to go into all of the problems I myself have with him as a candidate. They can wait for another time and, anyway, many of them probably don't hurt his electoral prospects and that’s what’s at issue here. Some of those (as I see them) problems probably even help him as a candidate; they make him a better politician if, in my view, a worse leader and potential President.
We start with the electorate. The presidential year electorate is very different than the off-year electorate. As I posted in the other thread, it's been averaging about 45 million extra voters as compared with the electorate in non-presidential year. And the composition of that electorate is generally different in a way that benefits Democrats. At this point (and going forward, without significant ideological / position shifts within the parties) winning a presidential race is an uphill climb for a generic Republican candidate. Changing demographics are working against them - more young people voting, more minorities voting, in particular more hispanics voting. Among other things, President Obama accelerated the movement of those groups into the pool of actual (rather than just eligible) voters.
I believe the generic Republican candidate has one significant advantage this year though: An enthusiasm gap. I think Republicans are, all other things being equal, more likely to be more excited about this election and motivated to vote. I think Mrs. Clinton exacerbates that problem for Democrats - she doesn't get them fired up in the way that President Obama did during his first campaign. Mr. Sanders, on the other hand, does. I think he would reduce the enthusiasm gap. The Supreme Court vacancy, depending on how it plays out of course, has the potential to meaningfully affect that enthusiasm gap as well.
Mr. Trump would no doubt bring additional enthusiasm with a subset of the Republican electorate. But he would also, to a great degree, negate the enthusiasm problem that Democrats might otherwise have (and he'd make some regular Republican voters less enthusiastic). He's scary enough to motivate a lot of them to vote even if their own candidate or the general state of things didn't do so. That effect (i.e. the enthusiasm bump that Democrats got from Mr. Trump being the Republican nominee) would be bigger if Mrs. Clinton was the candidate, with Mr. Sanders there'd be a bump but they'd be starting with more aggregate enthusiasm to begin with. So one problem with Mr. Trump as the nominee is that it mitigates a significant underlying advantage that Republicans have going in this time - an advantage which, frankly, Republicans almost have to have to win a presidential election given the current make-up of the prospective presidential year voting pool.
Moving on from the enthusiasm issue, Mr. Trump has what I see as a limited ability to pull in large blocks of new supporters (at least, on-net). Yes, he has great charisma and with it the ability to effectively mesmerize people; that quality will continue to help him pull in new supporters . He has a well-rehearsed, and thus credible, bravado. And he has, over decades, honed an ability to project power and greatness whether or not there’s been substance behind that projection in a given context (sometimes there has been, sometimes not so much). He is a great salesman and, well, a great politician. He’s one of the best we’ve seen in a long time, so good a politician that many seem to see him as not really being one.
But stepping back to look at the full arc of his candidacy thus far, I would say that a big part of what success he’s had has been driven by the basic strategy he's chosen. He's a bomb thrower - a relentless, impenitent, serial bomb thrower. In the present context and circumstances (e.g., with a still-wide primary field) that's worked for him. Being a bomb thrower can work up to a point, it can create a good bit of support - enthusiastic support. And it can do it fairly quickly. Some people will think that the bombs you're hurling are well aimed, that they're hitting deserving (perhaps heretofore insufficiently targeted) targets. Others will just like watching the show; we are drawn to fireworks and chaos and carnage.
There is, however, a big problem with the bomb thrower strategy, especially when it’s adopted this wholesale and implemented this energetically. Bombs hit people. Whether the targets are deserving or not, many of them are potential voters. Further, bombs do more than hit their intended targets, they often do collateral damage as well. Mr. Trump doesn't just use bomb throwing as a weapon in his political arsenal. It isn’t just a tactic he uses sparingly. It is, along with some other things I won’t get into now, the core of his campaign strategy. Over time the number of people that have been hit by some of the bombs he's thrown, or who relate strongly with those who have, will grow. Or democratic rhetoric and attack ads will make them more aware that they’ve been targeted by him.
It's one thing for an uber bomb thrower like Mr. Trump to garner plurality support from a subset of a single party. It's quite another for them to garner majority support from the entirety (or a larger subset) of the national electorate. The math doesn't work in a general election. There's a big difference between, e.g., a third of a half of a half (in a primary) and a half of three-quarters of one (in a general). The former is one-twelfth, the latter is three-eighths. Being able to get to the one doesn’t mean that you’d be able to get to the other.
Unless he becomes a completely different person (which would cost him some of the support that he's already gotten and the enthusiasm of some of that support), his aggregate support will quickly more or less reach its peak - and that peak won't be enough to get him elected. As time goes on his ability to net-add support diminishes. Those bombs that he continues to throw will continue to hit new people or people that new people can relate to, the damage they do will continue to add up. He's already built up quite a range of people that won't consider him - indeed, that will be highly motivated to come out and vote against him, they include large demographic swathes and large ideological swathes
On the other side of the equation, the strategy - bomb throwing - isn't one that is going to continually draw in more and more supporters as well as other strategies can. People aren't going to wake up one day and decide that, oh yeah, I really like the bomb throwing, I think I'll support him now. No, the people that like the bomb throwing either already support him or will soon do so. (Of course, as the nominee he’d pick up a great deal of support for the general election just because he’s the only option versus the Democrat’s nominee. Some of that support would be begrudging, but he’d pick it up by default.)
Yes, Mr. Trump will likely pull in some Democrats that other Republican candidates would not. But I don't think all that many, not as many as some seem to expect. To the extent he does, that will only be offsetting the Republicans that he will lose that others would not. I think there's a wider range of Republicans that he might lose than there are Democrats that he might gain. A number will see him as quite dangerous or, at any rate, not what they want in a President - for ideological reasons or for other reasons. It's anecdotal (and I don’t base my substantive assessments on this, it only reinforces my own thoughts), but quite a few of the people that I know - people that have always voted Republican in the past - have indicated that they would not vote for him in the general. If it came to that they just wouldn’t vote or would vote for a third party candidate. And among the people I know, he’s already lost supporters that he had earlier on - because of one thing or another that he’s said along the way. He scares people, many Republicans included. Again, the victims of thrown bombs add up over time. And being the victim of a single thrown bomb (or relating to someone who is) can outweigh the delight of having seen a hundred bombs thrown.
(character limit
)...
Tilted
..
I’m going to wrap this up for now, though I haven’t even gotten into some aspects of why I think he’d be very likely to lose the general election. I also haven’t gotten into my responses to counter arguments - I realize there are plenty of them, I’ve thought this situation through to a fair degree. He could, e.g., very much change his strategy for the general - not be as much a bomb thrower. But, for various reasons, I don’t think that would work either. Also, some have talked about him not really being a conservative, he’s taken liberal positions in the past. I don’t see his being ideologically more moderate (as some might describe him, owing to some more liberal positions) as being, in itself, a problem for him. The issue isn’t just where someone is overall on the idealogical spectrum, it’s also on what issues they are more liberal and on what issues they are more conservative. I think he has a sub-optimal mix (in terms of where he might be more liberal and where he might be more conservative) when it comes to being able to attract some liberals while holding on to most conservatives.
To be clear, I don’t think Mr. Rubio or even Mr. Kasich would have an easy time winning the general, though I think the latter would have the best chance of those still in the race on the Republican side. But Mr. Trump would very much be a long shot I think, as would Mr. Cruz for somewhat different reasons. I also think that Mr. Trump at the top of the ticket increases the chances that Democrats get to a majority in the Senate, and I think it helps Democrats gain ground in the House.
I'll maybe add more thoughts later, hopefully in smaller packets. And I'll try to respond if you take issue (or disagree) with particular things I've said. But at the end of the day, we'll just have to settle for having a friendly wager over our disagreement on this one.
To be clear, I don’t think Mr. Rubio or even Mr. Kasich would have an easy time winning the general, though I think the latter would have the best chance of those still in the race on the Republican side. But Mr. Trump would very much be a long shot I think, as would Mr. Cruz for somewhat different reasons. I also think that Mr. Trump at the top of the ticket increases the chances that Democrats get to a majority in the Senate, and I think it helps Democrats gain ground in the House.
I'll maybe add more thoughts later, hopefully in smaller packets. And I'll try to respond if you take issue (or disagree) with particular things I've said. But at the end of the day, we'll just have to settle for having a friendly wager over our disagreement on this one.
One sentence:
I think he will not win because our media controllers and political bosses don't want him to win.
I think he will not win because our media controllers and political bosses don't want him to win.
Tilted
..
That's what you think? Because that's surely not what I think.
I think supposed opposition in the media and opposition from supposed political bosses probably helps him as much as it hurts him, it may even be a net advantage.
Pete
Repete
You asked, so here goes an hour of my life I'll never get back...
I wouldn't say that Mr. Trump absolutely couldn't win the general election unless I was being hyperbolic (which I am sometimes), there's always the potential for something to happen that would greatly alter the situation (e.g. Mr. Bloomberg running as an independent). But I think his chances of winning would, without some kind of game changer like that, be very slim. He'd probably have a better chance against Mrs. Clinton than against Mr. Sanders though, she's quite the flawed candidate in her own right. Still, going in, I'd make her the heavy favorite.
I’m not going to go into all of the problems I myself have with him as a candidate. They can wait for another time and, anyway, many of them probably don't hurt his electoral prospects and that’s what’s at issue here. Some of those (as I see them) problems probably even help him as a candidate; they make him a better politician if, in my view, a worse leader and potential President.
We start with the electorate. The presidential year electorate is very different than the off-year electorate. As I posted in the other thread, it's been averaging about 45 million extra voters as compared with the electorate in non-presidential year. And the composition of that electorate is generally different in a way that benefits Democrats. At this point (and going forward, without significant ideological / position shifts within the parties) winning a presidential race is an uphill climb for a generic Republican candidate. Changing demographics are working against them - more young people voting, more minorities voting, in particular more hispanics voting. Among other things, President Obama accelerated the movement of those groups into the pool of actual (rather than just eligible) voters.
I believe the generic Republican candidate has one significant advantage this year though: An enthusiasm gap. I think Republicans are, all other things being equal, more likely to be more excited about this election and motivated to vote. I think Mrs. Clinton exacerbates that problem for Democrats - she doesn't get them fired up in the way that President Obama did during his first campaign. Mr. Sanders, on the other hand, does. I think he would reduce the enthusiasm gap. The Supreme Court vacancy, depending on how it plays out of course, has the potential to meaningfully affect that enthusiasm gap as well.
Mr. Trump would no doubt bring additional enthusiasm with a subset of the Republican electorate. But he would also, to a great degree, negate the enthusiasm problem that Democrats might otherwise have (and he'd make some regular Republican voters less enthusiastic). He's scary enough to motivate a lot of them to vote even if their own candidate or the general state of things didn't do so. That effect (i.e. the enthusiasm bump that Democrats got from Mr. Trump being the Republican nominee) would be bigger if Mrs. Clinton was the candidate, with Mr. Sanders there'd be a bump but they'd be starting with more aggregate enthusiasm to begin with. So one problem with Mr. Trump as the nominee is that it mitigates a significant underlying advantage that Republicans have going in this time - an advantage which, frankly, Republicans almost have to have to win a presidential election given the current make-up of the prospective presidential year voting pool.
Moving on from the enthusiasm issue, Mr. Trump has what I see as a limited ability to pull in large blocks of new supporters (at least, on-net). Yes, he has great charisma and with it the ability to effectively mesmerize people; that quality will continue to help him pull in new supporters . He has a well-rehearsed, and thus credible, bravado. And he has, over decades, honed an ability to project power and greatness whether or not there’s been substance behind that projection in a given context (sometimes there has been, sometimes not so much). He is a great salesman and, well, a great politician. He’s one of the best we’ve seen in a long time, so good a politician that many seem to see him as not really being one.
But stepping back to look at the full arc of his candidacy thus far, I would say that a big part of what success he’s had has been driven by the basic strategy he's chosen. He's a bomb thrower - a relentless, impenitent, serial bomb thrower. In the present context and circumstances (e.g., with a still-wide primary field) that's worked for him. Being a bomb thrower can work up to a point, it can create a good bit of support - enthusiastic support. And it can do it fairly quickly. Some people will think that the bombs you're hurling are well aimed, that they're hitting deserving (perhaps heretofore insufficiently targeted) targets. Others will just like watching the show; we are drawn to fireworks and chaos and carnage.
There is, however, a big problem with the bomb thrower strategy, especially when it’s adopted this wholesale and implemented this energetically. Bombs hit people. Whether the targets are deserving or not, many of them are potential voters. Further, bombs do more than hit their intended targets, they often do collateral damage as well. Mr. Trump doesn't just use bomb throwing as a weapon in his political arsenal. It isn’t just a tactic he uses sparingly. It is, along with some other things I won’t get into now, the core of his campaign strategy. Over time the number of people that have been hit by some of the bombs he's thrown, or who relate strongly with those who have, will grow. Or democratic rhetoric and attack ads will make them more aware that they’ve been targeted by him.
It's one thing for an uber bomb thrower like Mr. Trump to garner plurality support from a subset of a single party. It's quite another for them to garner majority support from the entirety (or a larger subset) of the national electorate. The math doesn't work in a general election. There's a big difference between, e.g., a third of a half of a half (in a primary) and a half of three-quarters of one (in a general). The former is one-twelfth, the latter is three-eighths. Being able to get to the one doesn’t mean that you’d be able to get to the other.
Unless he becomes a completely different person (which would cost him some of the support that he's already gotten and the enthusiasm of some of that support), his aggregate support will quickly more or less reach its peak - and that peak won't be enough to get him elected. As time goes on his ability to net-add support diminishes. Those bombs that he continues to throw will continue to hit new people or people that new people can relate to, the damage they do will continue to add up. He's already built up quite a range of people that won't consider him - indeed, that will be highly motivated to come out and vote against him, they include large demographic swathes and large ideological swathes
On the other side of the equation, the strategy - bomb throwing - isn't one that is going to continually draw in more and more supporters as well as other strategies can. People aren't going to wake up one day and decide that, oh yeah, I really like the bomb throwing, I think I'll support him now. No, the people that like the bomb throwing either already support him or will soon do so. (Of course, as the nominee he’d pick up a great deal of support for the general election just because he’s the only option versus the Democrat’s nominee. Some of that support would be begrudging, but he’d pick it up by default.)
Yes, Mr. Trump will likely pull in some Democrats that other Republican candidates would not. But I don't think all that many, not as many as some seem to expect. To the extent he does, that will only be offsetting the Republicans that he will lose that others would not. I think there's a wider range of Republicans that he might lose than there are Democrats that he might gain. A number will see him as quite dangerous or, at any rate, not what they want in a President - for ideological reasons or for other reasons. It's anecdotal (and I don’t base my substantive assessments on this, it only reinforces my own thoughts), but quite a few of the people that I know - people that have always voted Republican in the past - have indicated that they would not vote for him in the general. If it came to that they just wouldn’t vote or would vote for a third party candidate. And among the people I know, he’s already lost supporters that he had earlier on - because of one thing or another that he’s said along the way. He scares people, many Republicans included. Again, the victims of thrown bombs add up over time. And being the victim of a single thrown bomb (or relating to someone who is) can outweigh the delight of having seen a hundred bombs thrown.
(character limit
No way I am reading that despite your mad skillz
We had a brief revolt there for a few minutes, but when the shrieking mob starts shouting you down and taking over the information outlets, you WILL assimilate.
No thanks. I get enough punditry reading and don't have to sit through someone's vanity video.
So you are openly admitting you don't want to know the truth about Donald Trump?
Tilted
..
I think I'm having a slow-brain morning, I'm honestly not sure I'm following you.
Are you saying you've changed your mind and no longer think Mr. Trump would win? Or is there a sarcasm angle I'm missing.
Because, if you've changed your mind then I'm taking credit for that. Wrongly, I'm sure, but I'm taking credit regardless.
PsyOps
Pixelated
I think Super Tuesday will tell all about whether Trump’s tactics have maintained/increased his support. As it is now, strangely enough, all the controversial things he has done have resulted in increased support. I’m almost inclined to say it’s the electorate that has changed rather than Trump having to change to meet the electorate. Trump has been getting endorsements from people I considered to be very level-headed people, that has be scratching my head as to what they are seeing or what I am missing. When Cruz failed to get the evangelical vote in SC, and Trump took it, I am struggling to find what I’m not seeing. I’m waiting for that a ha moment where I am able to look past the bomb throwing and see who this guy really is. He is a liberal and right wing evangelicals are supporting him.
Is the anger in voters that strong that conservatives completely dismiss their principles to get someone in there they think is really an outsider just for the sake at thumbing their collective noses at this so-called ‘establishment’?
PsyOps
Pixelated
So, who have you assimilated to?
Tilted
..
I don't think Super Tuesday will tell us much about Mr. Trump's ability to win a general election. I mean, how he does in some areas will give us some insight, yes. But, big picture, I doubt it well reveal anything compelling enough to change the basic problem that I was referring to. Let me try to explain the problem that I was getting at a little differently.
The essence of electoral politics is convincing people that you get (and agree) that they aren't the ones to blame (for whatever problems there are), that you recognize that it is someone or something else that is to blame. That's it really, it's pretty simple. The tricky part is that everyone is also the potential someone or something on the other side of that consideration. You have to be able to convince enough people that you know that they aren't the ones to blame without making too many (other) people feel like you think that they are the ones to blame. That's where the art of it comes in. If a politician didn't need to be concerned about what the others - those that supposedly are to blame - thought, it would all be so easy. You'd just go around, in no uncertain terms, pointing fingers at everyone else, that is everyone other than whomever you were talking to. But for the most part politicians (certainly those running for President) can't do that, they have to be more coy, more vague, less direct.
Looking at it that way - with the understanding that it's more or less just a sophisticated, sometimes less than forthright, blame game - it's not hard to recognize that the thing that has allowed Mr. Trump to take the Republican race by storm is the very thing that makes him near to unelectable (in my assessment) in a national election, assuming there are only two major contenders. Mr. Trump has come out and been clear about who is to blame, on many fronts and on many issues. He’s pointing fingers - those people are to blame, those people are to blame, and those people are to blame. That’s great. People love that. Lots of people agree with him on lots of accounts.
He isn’t being wishy washy about it, (in many regards) he isn't trying to conceal from the THEMS that they are the ones he’s identifying as being to blame (and thus, the ones that will fair worse if he gets the power to do what he apparently thinks should be done). That makes those that don’t think Mr. Trump is pointing fingers at them happy. He’s done that very important thing very well (because he hasn’t worried about the other side of the coin as most politicians generally have to do): He’s made it really, really clear to some people that he knows that they are not the ones to blame. But in doing that he's made it nearly as clear to some (it's getting to be many) others that he thinks they are to blame. In a party primary you can get away with that. Heck, you can make 80% of the country feel like you blame them for everything - that you think they're some sorrow SOBs. You can carve out and abandon large swathes of people that would no longer even consider you for their vote. And yet, you can still win primaries, especially when there are multiple candidates in the field. The key is, for those you haven’t blamed yet (even if they're only a plurality of those in play), their support of you is really strong. You’ve given them what they really want, and in a stronger dosage than anyone else was willing to give it to them - affirmation that they are right, in particular that they are right in who they think is to blame for various problems. The rest of the people? The people they, and apparently you, think are to blame for various things? F ’em, you don’t need ‘em to win the nomination.
But the general election is a totally different beast. You can’t have huge swathes of people that are left with no doubt whatsoever that you think THEY are the ones to blame. That’s why politics works the way it works, politicians have to be mindful to not overstate the case when they're talking to certain groups such that too many other groups are clear in that they are the THEYS, the ones that politician thinks are clearly to blame. On all kinds of fronts - on lots of issues - politicians have to balance how directly they point their fingers. They need those fingers to always appear to be pointing away from the current audience, but also, to whatever degree is practicable, to not be clearly pointing at any particular others - at least, not others that are still potential supporters. Mr. Trump isn't trying to work that balance. That being the case, it's easy enough to garner enough support to win primaries; but it's going to be awfully hard to get enough support to win a general election.
Honestly, I don't have the time to read your posts, Tilted, LYMI. (but I skimmed them!)
I'll take the side that I think Trump will beat the rest of the GOP candidates on Super Tuesday and, I also think that it's likely he'll win big enough that it could cause Rubio or Cruz to drop out. He's pulling in all kinds of support and the numbers are getting higher every day.
I also think he will go on to win the POTUS against whichever candidate ends up winning on the Dem side.
Why not? I mean, there are enough people here who already think he can't win - I'll take the other side.
I'll take the side that I think Trump will beat the rest of the GOP candidates on Super Tuesday and, I also think that it's likely he'll win big enough that it could cause Rubio or Cruz to drop out. He's pulling in all kinds of support and the numbers are getting higher every day.
I also think he will go on to win the POTUS against whichever candidate ends up winning on the Dem side.
Why not? I mean, there are enough people here who already think he can't win - I'll take the other side.