THE PROBLEM ISN’T TRUMP, IT’S AMERICA

As we all know, Donald Trump will say anything to be POTUS. And as we all know, it’s working – at least as far as media polls go. Which has led to a lot of dithering from Democrats afraid that he might actually win and from some Establishment Republicans afraid that he might cost them the White House.

The good news is that the experts at FiveThirtyEight assure us that the odds of Trump actually succeeding are pretty slim. Election mechanics simply won’t allow it. They’re probably right about that.

The bad news is that while Trump’s numbers won’t get him elected, they reveal a particularly awful and ugly truth: if you want to lead Republican polls, all you have to do is say outrageous things honest straight talk that exploits whatever fear and loathing and racist bigotry exists in the white American majority, and run with it.

As usual, John Scalzi puts it better than I ever could, but the gist of his commentary here is this: the real problem here isn’t whether Trump might win – it’s the fact that at least 30% of Republicans are buying into his schtick so much that they’d vote for him right now if the election was today.

The percentage may actually be higher when considering that candidates like Ben Carson and Ted Cruz have similar opinions to Trump, even if they’re a little softer spoken about it.

Whatever the actual numbers, Scalzi’s point remains valid: “You can't say the man who has for months led the polls to be the candidate for president of one of the two major political parties in the United States is not in the mainstream.”

Put another way: if/when Trump drops out of the race, the 30% of Republican voters who agree with him will still be out there looking for a candidate to back (assuming Trump doesn’t go third-party). It’s a fair bet that the Establishment GOP candidates is not going to just pretend that 30% doesn’t exist. They’re going to be thinking about how to get them onside.

Doing that may not require them to go to Trump extremes in their rhetoric. And there are also signs that even some Tea Party politicos think Trump may have gone a little too far with his religious litmus tests.

On the other hand, this is the same party whose Establishment wing gave us Guantanamo Bay, enhanced interrogation, mass surveillance and a million Benghazi investigations, to say nothing of their “Syrian refugees f*** off” policy. So I don't think they have to go too far off the reservation to target Trump’s leftovers.

Meanwhile, for some anecdotal context, check out this post about House Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA), who had this to say about the evolution of his constituency:

"I used to spend ninety per cent of my constituent response time on people who call, e-mail, or send a letter, such as, ‘I really like this bill, H.R. 123,’ and they really believe in it because they heard about it through one of the groups that they belong to, but their view was based on actual legislation," Nunes said. "Ten per cent were about ‘Chemtrails from airplanes are poisoning me’ to every other conspiracy theory that’s out there. And that has essentially flipped on its head." The overwhelming majority of his constituent mail is now about the far-out ideas, and only a small portion is "based on something that is mostly true." He added, "It’s dramatically changed politics and politicians, and what they’re doing."

So Lindsay Graham can talk all he wants about how Trump doesn’t represent the Republican Party. He may not represent the whole party, but he represents a big enough chunk of it that the “real” GOP can't just write them off as the fringe anymore. The GOP likes to talk about how it has a big tent, but it’s time they admitted that at least a third of the tent is filled with people like this.



Which is just sad.

Happy Christmas is a warm gun,

This is dF