Donald Trump can win if people #nevertrump… no he can’t.
Trump can win if the Republican Party decides to… no. That’s not going to happen.
Well, what if Donald Trump… it doesn’t matter.
Barring a zombie apocalypse, an alien invasion, or Hillary being indicted for her crimes by an Obama-led Justice Department (which is just as likely as the first two), Donald Trump will not become the next president. Even if Hillary’s terrible cough turns out to be a symptom of some deadly disease, Trump will not be elected because whoever her vice president ends up defeating him anyway.
This is not an attempt to rehash the merits of Donald Trump versus the other candidates. The primaries are over, and Trump won.
But the people who say Trump has a good chance of winning have NO IDEA what they are talking about. They are improvising, bullshitting, engaging in wish fulfillment, or just telling you what you want to hear.
This isn’t philosophy, and you don’t need to be a political genius to figure it out.
In the latest ABC News poll, Trump’s unfavorable rating among all Americans has reached 70 percent; and 77 percent of women view him unfavorably. His favorable rating among his white male base is 46 percent, down from 54 percent in an ABC News poll last month. Just 47 percent of self-identified conservatives view him favorably, down from 58 percent in May.
Despite what some people like to say, when you have two candidates as widely known as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, polls DO matter this far. Trump consistently loses in this poll.
Some people are taking heart from the fact that while Trump is still losing in swing states, he is losing by smaller margins. They failed to consider that he is so incredibly unpopular that he is bringing into play a number of “gimmie” states for the GOP for the Democrats, including Georgia, Missouri, Arizona, Utah and, yes, even Texas.
That `s bad.
Worse, Ted Cruz withdrew on May 3, effectively paving the way for Donald Trump to focus on the general election. That’s an eternity in a presidential campaign, but what has Donald Trump done with his time?
Has he made any significant effort to win over Republicans who are skeptical of him? No. Has he done anything significant to reach novel demographics beyond his current base of supporters? No. Has he begun building any kind of professional data operation that is now imperative to the campaign? No. Has he cleaned up his act, stopped making gaffes, and shown that he can be more presidential? No.
Also, while Trump certainly has some good people working for him, his campaign staff is laughable. The best people on the GOP side won’t work with him because they’re afraid their reputations will be tarnished, and most of the staff that is on his team are amateurs that no other GOP campaign at this level would hire. On top of that, Hillary Clinton has more people working for her in Ohio than Trump did in his entire campaign. There’s something to be said for running gaunt and ruthless, but given the needy quality of Trump’s rapid response team and some of the bonkers press releases he issues, his staff is either lacking talent, overwhelmed, or simply not allowed to do their job. Maybe it’s all of these problems combined.
Believe it or not, Trump’s fundraising is even worse. Maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise, since he spent months telling everyone he was so opulent he didn’t need anyone else’s money and waved off Super PACS, only to start begging for money like everyone else as soon as the primaries were over, but that’s a huge problem. Hillary Clinton and the Super PACS supporting her will likely spend somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion (that’s billion with ab) on this campaign. Meanwhile, Trump started this month with $1.3 million cash in hand. Does anyone see Donald Trump disciplined enough to spend hours every day on the phone, convincing wealthy donors to put up cash and attend multiple private, unofficial fundraisers?
No way.
Trump sees this too, which is why he tossed around the idea of financing his own campaign… which is also a bad joke.
“I’ll be sincere, I think I could spend $50, $60, $70 million of my own money and run a great campaign.“, Trump told Muir. “Would I have as many ads as she does? No.”
The fact that Donald Trump thinks this is enough to adequately fund his campaign shows that he is completely delusional and could end up being outbid by Clinton in the GOP by more than 10 to 1. Money isn’t everything in politics, but a candidate with that kind of cash advantage will win 999 times out of 1,000.
It’s unbelievable that normally sensible people look at all this and think, “Sure, Trump has a lot of flaws, but no one thought he’d win the primary; so he’ll be fine.” What kind of “thinking” is that? In the NCAA tournament, if the 15th seed pulls off an upset, you don’t bet on them to win the tournament because no one expected them to win the first game. Right now, Trump is in even worse shape than Republicans in Missouri after Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape comments,” not just because Trump is MORE UNPOPULAR than a politician whose name is synonymous with unlikability, but because that state is a more hospitable playing field for the GOP than the country as a whole.
So what can we do?
Well, there was talk of a convention delegate revolt. Unfortunately, even if that happened and Trump was replaced by a more electable candidate (basically anyone with a pulse whose last name wasn’t Bush), a bunch of people would refuse to vote in protest because Trump won fair and square. Maybe those people would be hypocrites because they’re mostly the same ones who said, “Anyone who doesn’t support Trump is supporting Hillary,” but that’s the reality. Plus, while Trump would probably be secretly relieved that he wouldn’t go down in history as a historic loser, he would probably do everything in his power to undermine the GOP nomination and put “Corrupt Hillary” in the White House out of revenge.
Could the Republican Party win if Trump simply didn’t run? Absolutely. If Trump were replaced by anyone other than Jeb Bush, Hillary would go from being a virtual loser to being the massive outsider. Would Trump do it? It’s highly unlikely, because it would require him to do what’s best for the country, rather than turn it into a massive branding effort to benefit himself. That seems out of character. It would be great to be wrong, but unless Trump decides he personally benefits from not running, it’s demanding to imagine him backing out. Beyond that, the only thing people who care about the country can do is try to assist the candidates down the list so we can limit the huge losses we’ll suffer with Trump at the top.
Donald Trump is a dog that finally got hit by a car bumper and has no idea what to do next. Unfortunately, the rest of the country is dragging its feet and that will mean Hillary Clinton will be our next president.
