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.
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?)
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.
One sentence:
I think he will not win because our media controllers and political bosses don't want him to win.
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.
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 )...
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.
No thanks. I get enough punditry reading and don't have to sit through someone's vanity video.
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.
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.)
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.
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’?