More about Trump and the Democrats
Lately I’ve seen lots of articles and comments about Trump’s appeal to Democrats who might cross over to vote for him. It makes a certain amount of intuitive sense, actually. After all, Trump is not a doctrinaire conservative, to say the least. One could even say he’s a RINO of sorts, albeit an idiosyncratic RINO who is very conservative on certain issues and somewhat of a liberal on others.
Plus, the topic that seems to be firing people up about Trump is immigration, and although worries and concerns about immigration (illegal, legal, and refugee-esque) are more common among Republicans than Democrats, they are hardly limited to Republicans. So all in all, some Democratic support for Trump makes sense.
Democratic support alone wouldn’t automatically mean a victory over Hillary, strangely enough, either for Trump or for any other Republican candidate, unless that Democratic support is (to coin a phrase) absolutely HUGE. Short of that, for victory to occur, it would be necessary that Trump or any other candidate not lose Republican voters, as well. And of course we know that many Republican voters are not keen on Trump (same for Rubio, same for Christie, same for quite a few others).
Right now neither I nor anyone else can say what will happen in November of 2016. We’re limited to attempts to measure what’s going on in the here and now. Given that restriction, I must say that I’m skeptical about the those reports of widespread Democratic support for Trump—not because I don’t think it could be true, but because of the quality of the evidence. I already wrote about this a few weeks ago here, but since then a more recent poll on the subject has a lot of people buzzing.
There are lot of things about that newer poll that give me pause, however, even more than most polls. The first is that the pollsters showed respondents a Trump ad first, and were testing the results of the ad. That means that the ad was fresh in their minds, which certainly would be likely to create a positive bias in the questions that followed. The second is that there is no way to compare Trump’s crossover voters in the polls to the number of crossover voters other GOP contenders might get. More? Less? We don’t know; because the pollsters only asked about Democratic support for Trump (because they were actually testing the ad). The third is that this was an internet and partially app-based poll; they can sometimes be quite valid or sometimes very skewed, and I haven’t seen anything about how these particular subjects were selected in this particular poll.
The fourth is that there were 916 “likely voters” in the poll. I haven’t found any word on how that broke down in terms of number of Republican vs. Democrat respondents, but let’s just say that half were Democrats (458). Twenty percent of those said they would cross over for Trump, which means that about 91 of them said that. That’s a rather small “n” on which to pin an entire theory that Democrats are going for Trump. Plus, if Trump were to run against Hillary, 14% of Republicans in the poll said they would vote for Hillary, which would be 64. So the net difference among the entire voter pool of 916 between Democrats-for-Trump and Republicans-for-Hillary would be 27.
What’s more—and this is what especially gives me pause about current measurements of the “Democrats-for-Trump” phenomenon—as I wrote a while back, in more conventional polls with a more conventional design, in a posited race against Hillary no Democratic advantage for Trump over the other candidates appears. Nor, by the way, is there an advantage for Trump with black voters, another demographic that many people say goes for Trump more than for the other Republicans.
So far, I’ve not seen any conventionally-designed polls that find an advantage for Trump with such groups. In fact, the opposite appears to be true. For example, the very latest national poll from Fox, which I have already discussed here, had some details that I didn’t get into in that earlier post but which are relevant.
If you look closely at questions 22-25 in that poll, which was taken January 4-7 and involved a sample of 1006 respondents queried by telephone (cell and landline), you will see that Trump does slightly worse against Hillary among Democrats and among black voters than the other leading GOP candidates do. Take a look if you don’t believe me—and these are typical of results I’ve seen in earlier polls.
In a matchup against Hillary, Cruz gets 11% of those identifying as Democrats, whereas Hillary gets 6% of people who say they are Republicans. Rubio gets 12% of Democrats against Hillary’s 5% of Republicans, a trifle better. Bush (remember him?) gets 10% of Democrats to Hillary’s 7% of Republicans, a tiny bit worse. And Trump gets 9% of Democrats to Hillary’s 8% of Republicans, which is a bit worse, although they all cluster rather closely together and the differences are not so very significant.
Against Hillary, Cruz gets 5% of the black vote, but Rubio gets 9% of the black vote. Could be significant, I suppose. Bush gets 6% of the black vote against her. And Trump? 4% of the black vote. Again—except perhaps for Rubio—they all are very similar, but Trump does slightly worse.
You can say it’s all a bunch of garbage. You can say that things will change because there’s lots more time (and I’d agree with you there). You can say people are lying to the pollsters, but I think that’s just another way of saying “I’ll throw out what I don’t like and keep what I do like.” If people are lying, we’re all just guessing, so don’t cite statistics about 20% of Democrats supporting Trump from a different poll where they could just as easily be lying. And I can think of a very good reason why people would lie and say that—because they are Democrats who think Trump would be a weaker nominee for the GOP than the others would and therefore they want Trump to be nominated, so they want to encourage Republicans to think of him as a winner who will draw the Democratic vote and defeat Hillary.
Is my theory right? Haven’t a clue; it certainly could be wrong. But I’m airing it to show that there’s no problem thinking up ways to discredit polls if you’ve got a mind to. As for me, I tend to think that polls tell us something real, and that most people don’t lie to pollsters (and that only a very tiny minority do), but that the best way to evaluate a poll is to look at sample and methodology, and then look at average trends in many polls over time. The trends I see so far with Trump are that he doesn’t appeal to Democrats or black voters more than the other GOP candidates do, and perhaps even slightly less. That could change. I can certainly imagine why he might end up appealing more to those groups, but so far I just don’t see it.
[NOTE: People also often bring up crowd enthusiasm when speaking of Trump. In general, I don’t think crowd enthusiasm matters in terms of election results, for reasons I already stated back in 2012 and also here.]
Too much reading of the entrails all around for me. I think I’ll tune out as much as possible between now and New Hampshire.
“The polls” are nothing but tedious at this point.
“of people who say they are ”
They ought to poll “people who say they are Republicans” but will vote for a Democrat regardless.
Probably the same rough percentage of petulant foot-stampers and camouflaged Democrats who “gave those Republicans a chance, but ….”
Maybe like Chris Buckley, everyone’s favorite legacy Republican, or that crease sniffer David Brooks. Men who think that if they are photographed in a Barbour game jacket, no one will notice they have girl’s hands.
DNW:
“People who say they are” either Democrats OR Republicans in polls are trusted by pollsters; one can’t tell who they really are on either side.
Some polls used to try to control for misrepresentation by asking respondents if they voted in the last election, and if so who for. That acted as a slight check—they’d report what percentage of self-identified Republicans in the poll had voted for Obama or what percentage of self-identified Democrats in the poll had voted for Romney, for example. Of course, if people were thinking, they could lie about those things, too. And I don’t think most pollsters are asking that question lately, anyway.
I think Trump (and Hillary) will put off a massive amount of swing voters.
The share of Americans identifying as Democrats dropped to a record low in 2015, according to the latest Gallup results published Monday, in the latest indication that Americans’ attachment to either political party is at or nearing historical lows.
Overall, 42 percent over the course of the past year identified as independents, a slight drop from the 43 percent who identified as such in 2014. While Democrats maintained a small advantage over Republicans – 29 percent to 26 percent – the Democratic share is at its lowest in Gallup history.
politico
I have new theory on why Trump appeals to both parties. It’s not his highly volatile positions or blustering. It’s an implied promise that he will get the regular guy access to the inside deals they always thought were there. As an independent businessman for over 25 years, i’m amazed at how many people think the way to get rich is to get an inside deal. These do exist but mostly for people dealing with the government in unions or graft. Trump looks like he will shake up the cronies because he knows how they work (he is one and that is accepted by his supporters). Either the imagined huge sums of money fed to the insiders is then spread out to the public (who think its tens of thousands per capita not tens of dollars) or they will get access otherwise. This is a bipartisan appeal and it does not require any detailed policy just a persona.
Beyond his celebrity, in a society addicted to celebrity worship, I do not understand the donalds appeal.
parker:
See this.
Notes on a Phenomenon
by Mark Steyn
In 1980, Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” was an aberration – a half-decade blip in three decades of post-war US prosperity that had enabled Americans with high school educations to lead middle-class lives in a three-bedroom house on a nice-sized lot in an agreeable neighborhood. In 2015, for many Americans, “malaise” is not a blip, but a permanent feature of life that has squeezed them out of the middle class. They’re not in the mood for bromides about second American centuries: They’d like what’s left of their own lifespan to be less worse.
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Mr. Trump’s supporters don’t care if he’s classically conservative. Doctrinal purity is not the story this year. If the national GOP is a vehicle for ensuring that John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have a car and driver and a Gulf emir-sized retinue, then it’s very effective. If it’s a vehicle for advancing conservative principles, then it’s a rusted-up lemon on cinder blocks. Peggy Noonan
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~THE DIFFERENCE: Trump has already demonstrated that he knows how to change the conversation. Mark Steyn
-Peggy Noonan
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Phyllis Schlafly Makes the Case for President Trump: ‘Only Hope to Defeat the Kingmakers’ – “Because everybody else will fall in line. The Kingmakers have so much money behind them.”
More than fifty years ago, Schlafly coined the term Kingmakers–or what Schlafly says is now “generally called the Establishment,” or donor class–to describe a select group of cosmopolitan elites who control the Republican Party and have historically determined the Party’s presidential nominee
these “few secret kingmakers… successfully forced their choice on a free country where there are more than 34 million Republican voters… They dictated the choice of the Republican presidential nominee just as completely as the Paris dressmakers control the length of women’s skirts.” Schlafly 1964
Schlafly explained that immigration represents an existential issue for the nation: “If we don’t stop immigration–this torrent of immigrants coming in–we’re not going to be America anymore because most of the people coming in have no experience with limited government. They don’t know what that is. They look to the government to solve all of their problems, and as soon as we have a high majority of people who think that, it’s going to be a different country.”
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As Schlafly wrote in 1964:
the U.S. has admitted 59 million immigrants since 1965, and that one quarter of today’s population is either foreign-born or a child of a foreign-born parent. Sen. Rubio also did not mention that every three years, the U.S. voluntarily admits a new population of immigrants the size of Los Angeles. For instance, over the next ten years, the U.S. will issue more green cards to foreign nationals than the population of the three early 2016 primary states— Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina— combined.
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Schlafly explained that Trump’s America First platform on the critical issues of immigration and trade sets him up as true enemy of the Establishment–or “Kingmakers”–and, as such, he is the only candidate who cannot be co-opted by them.
“I don’t think he’ll make inroads with the Kingmaker types–that is–the big business [types],” Schlafly said.
“Because he’s not doing what he’s told [Schlafly chuckles]. They like people to do what they’re told.
”Breitbart followed up: “And you think all of the other candidates will just do what they’re told?
“I do,” Schlafly said.
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the Kingmakers want “to nominate candidates who would sidestep or suppress the key issues” by compromising with Democrats on the issues that matter to Republican voters.
In so doing, the Kingmakers create a sort of monopoly consensus on particular issues–and, as a result, voters are denied their ability to choose a candidate who represents their interests, since each party’s nominee represents merely an echo of the other side.
For instance, the Kingmakers’ choice-candidate this election, Marco Rubio, shares President Obama’s same goals on mass immigration and trade— with both men trying to make it easier to import cheaper foreign goods and labor.
I don’t know if he’d pull enough Republican voters to make a difference (and I’m not too sure about Independents), but I have been convinced since day one of the primaries that no other Republican candidate would get as large a percentage of Democrat votes as Donald Trump.
First, a lot of folks will vote for him because of his celebrity. Some of those folks are Democrats. Especially if it’s him vs. Hillary. Hillary is not an appealing “celebrity.” Her voice is shrill. She is not charismatic.
Second, many manual laborers and blue collar workers will vote for Trump because he says “he’ll bring our jobs back from China, Japan and Mexico and Trump does what he says.”
Third, as neo-neocon points out, folks who want closed borders will vote for him, and many of them are Democrat. I probably know more 1st and 2nd generation immigrants who want closed borders than multi-generation Americans.
As I’ve stated before, I will not vote for Trump, but he will appeal to some people on those issues.
Ask yourself this question; if Trump ran on the Democrat ticket could he win an election for Mayor of New York? Governor of New York? If he had residency could he win as Governor of California running as a Democrat?
Quite possibly, “Yes” to all of the above. He has appeal among Democrats.
If Trump were running against Hillary on the Democrat ticket would he be polling lower in Iowa? South Carolina? I think there’s a good chance he’d be ahead of her.
Rufus T. Firefly:
You may be convinced of it, but there’s no evidence of it in the polls so far.
I did not read all that much of Neo’s essay. There is only so much poll data and rumination thereon that I can tolerate.
I do not know which party has the most useless people: a) the Democrats who will vote for Hillary, an unindicted felon, possibly treasonous, the quintessential corruptocrat, or b) the GOP, its ranks apparently packed with people who will not vote for Trump for a variety of reasons, some nonsensical, and thus will give the presidency to the aforesaid Hillary.
I’ll take Trump, thank you very much. I prefer Cruz, but he, like Carson and Fiorina, is simply too able and too moral for our beloved electorate, regardless of party.
https://www.facebook.com/cliff.medina.39/videos/462888523895053/
neoneocon,
I understand the concept of mob mentality. I witnessed the mindlessness of the 60’s and the reign of the boychild king. What I not understand is why people who consider themselves to be ‘conservatives’ believe trump will be a conservative president, instead of a phone and pen president. The republic twists in the wind hanging on a thread.
parker:
Because people who call themselves conservative are not really different from other people. People are frustrated and angry, and they are susceptible to the same persuasions (and hopes) that people have always been susceptible to.
I have watched over the last decade, and particularly during the Obama administration, as many on the right have gotten to the point of what I consider desperate rage at the way things have been going. Trump channels that rage and feeds it, and he does it with humor. Plus he’s someone who’s already a celebrity, and a lot of people already like him. Trump supporters feel they are very very logical, and every now and then I do see a rational argument for him (although I don’t happen to agree). But in the main, I see the same wishful thinking, cult of personality, rationalizing rather than rationality, hope and change, operating as with Obama, just in another direction.
For all of our sakes, if Trump is nominated and if he wins, I hope their predictions turn out to be correct.
You are right, as in correct, neoneocon. A big part of me wants to believe being a conservative means adhering to the ideal of the rule of law, not the rule of men. With the exception of a few admendments, we have a sound framework for the rule of law, its called the Constitution. (Yes, I know you know that.)
Perhaps there if no way back to Franklin’s “A republic, if you can keep it.” Too few want to keep it. Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, LBJ, WJC, and now bho, and perhaps djt or hrc are a long line of usurpers of the rule of law. There are other participates in congress and SCOTUS who have helped to prevert the rule of law (the Constitution) over the decades; in addition to the voters lead by the nose by the 4th estate.
neo-neocon, GOP candidates always poll lower in nationwide polls during the primaries. Things would be different after a few Trump v. Hillary debates.
In a national campaign always bet on the most telegenic. Been that way since Kennedy-Nixon.
After one trump vs hrc debate the LIVs will conclude trump is a bombastic live grenade and hrc is the voice of reason. Cruz, Rubio, and Fiorina (in no particular order) can debate rings around hrc when it comes down to any issue. trump would come off looking like the last clown out of the clown car. trump has not a clue when it comes to how to conduct a well reasoned debate. hrc is many things, what she is not is a bombastic media play toy. She is a lair and utterly corrupt, but so is trump.
@Parker: Poor fellow you are. Trump has already rolled grenades into her campaign. Fun to watch.
Accusations that Trump is corrupt need to be followed up by specifics. Pursue them at your peril.
Dorothy Rabinowitz pins it in today’s WSJ:
“To hear the mayor of Philadelphia was to grasp, more clearly than ever, the fury that has led to Donald Trump’s success in attracting voters–the fury of citizens who know official lies when they hear them, whether about border security, immigration, or the ever-expanding requirements of multiculturalist dogma.”
Read the whole thing if you subscribe:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/denying-the-obvious-about-islamist-terror-1452556011
Once again, I don’t get the ‘cult of personality’ and the claims he doesn’t know anything and has no policies and is a Democrat pretending to be conservative.
Read his books please. You can read his book from 2012 (before any of this hype about him) and see that his policies are NOT liberal policies. He just recently released an updated version of that book under a different title…but if you are really worried about him pretending to be conservative, read the book from 2012.
He lays out a lot of his policies and thoughts about politics in there…very simple to read, lots of footnotes. You can get it used on Amazon for a song. Do yourself a favor, buy the book, read it, and then come back and tell me he is a liberal in sheep’s clothing, that he has no policies and it’s all personality and no substance.
When Cruz was my constitutional law student at Harvard, he aced the course after making a big point of opposing my views in class – arguing stridently for sticking with the original meaning against the idea of a more elastic living Constitution whenever such ideas came up. I enjoyed jousting with him, but Ted never convinced me – nor did I convince him. At least he was consistent in those days. Now, he seems to be a fair weather originalist, abandoning that method’s narrow constraints when it suits his ambition”… ~ Laurence H Tribe (Harvard)
Do yourself a favor, buy the book, read it, and then come back and tell me he is a liberal in sheep’s clothing, that he has no policies and it’s all personality and no substance.
YourRight
AndMostHereDon’tRealizeTheDoNotSeeOutsideTheSoupOfTheLeft
For starters, what does the Republican party stand for? I don’t know, and neither does anyone else. We have a Big Tent! Pro-abortion; pro-life; pro gay marriage; pro traditional family; conservative; “compassionate” conservative (read: liberal); religious; atheist; pro gun rights; “sensible” gun laws (read: anti-gun). Kind of makes your head explode.
Meanwhile, across the aisle, the tent is not only tiny, it is doctrinaire in a manner that would make the Nazis blush. No one in the Democratic party strays from socialism; atheism; second amendment bashing; open borders; unlimited abortion, heavily financed by the government; destruction of the traditional family; destruction of the healthcare system. Or, as T.H. White noted, “Everything not forbidden is compulsory.”
coach is right
neo-neocon,
“You may be convinced of it, but there’s no evidence of it in the polls so far.”
Can you take any election where an incumbent was not running, nor his VP, and a candidate was polling above 40% in January? I mean no offense, but your reliance on national polling across parties at this point in the process has no basis in history.
All of us here are folks who take citizenship seriously and work to stay informed and make informed choices. We live among tens of millions who do not do that. And those people have had a decisive impact on elections in this country.
A celebrity candidate like Donald Trump would do well with low information voters. Jesse Ventura won the Governorship of Minnesota. Arnold Schwarzenegger won the Governorship of California. One an actor with no political experience, the other a wrestler/entertainer with no political experience. To low information voters who would make either of those choices Trump seems even less risky. At least (to them) he’s proven he understands business, economics and how to hire and fire successful people.
And, what is undoubtedly the most important point with those voters; he has proven those things on a screen in their home. Arnold and Jessie both had a history of looking tough and getting things done on television (and cinemas, in Arnold’s case).
Again, another relevant, historical question; name a Presidential election since Nixon-Kennedy where the most telegenic candidate lost?
neo-neocon, Canada just elected a guy almost exclusively on telegenics. It’s very sad, and depresses me to no end, but the reality is this stuff really matters in today’s elections.
As much as I want to believe I live in a country where my peers understand the Constitution; concepts of freedom and liberty and take their duty to elect Representatives seriously that is simply not true for tens of millions of American voters.
Hillary Clinton is not telegenic. The Democrats are trying to hide her. The put their debates on Saturday nights, opposite sporting events that half the country is watching.
To those of you obsessing about the candidates’ debate skills; you are correct, Trump is awful in televised debates and most all the candidates do better than him in the technicalities of debating. The only problem is, Trump’s numbers go up after each one.
Why? He’s a bombastic loud-mouth talking tough talk on TV.
People want a winner who has their back in the White House. Does Ted Cruz look like a winner? Rand Paul? How would either one look next to Putin?
I know, I know; Cruz and Paul are smarter than Trump and they know the Constitution 1,000 times better than Trump ever will, but, unfortunately (very unfortunately) millions of voters don’t even pay attention to that.
And, neo-neocon, many of those voters voted for the Democrat in the last two election cycles.
I will vote for Trump before I vote for Hillary or Bernie or abstain altogether from the disgusting mess as I might otherwise be inclined to do if the stakes were not so high.
That said, I see no reason to think that Trump would be anything but a terrible president, much like Obama: a self-obsessed narcissist who wouldn’t dream of listening to people who know more than he does, and who will do as he pleases with disregard to law or populace, when he can get away with it. They differ in temperament – Trump is a walking gaffe, a bigmouthed bombast, while Obama is a slimy liar – but their main difference I suspect is that Trump lacks any defining direction, goals or plans while Obama seems to have consistent pro-muslim, anti-West, stick-it-to-ordinary-Americans vision that he has pursued diligently throughout his terms. Trump switches up shallow talking points but has no vision or plan; just a giant ego that thinks he can magically make things happen because he’s Trump; or thinks that enough voters believe it to make him president.
Trump looks like he would be a scattershot executive with a couple of a talking points but no real plans, who will force through poorly executed ideas. Because a grade school child has more experience being a student than he has being a Republican, I have no faith that he even has conservative views. He’s simply inflaming an angry crowd. The only thing he can possibly accomplish is to wreck things, which will make the “burn it down” people happy until they realize that what grows in its place is not going to be the republic they dream of.
Basically, my honest appraisal is that if Trump gets elected, he will be the last GOP president for a while – he will ruin the brand just as Obama should have ruined the Democrat brand for a generation with his staggering incompetence. But the media will not lie for and cover Trump, as they protect Obama. He will be tarred and feathered with his bad ideas and bad outcomes.
I still suspect he’s in the race for two reasons: 1) narcissism and 2) disrupting the GOP proceedings to set up the show for his pal Hilary, at a time when the Dems are very weak – but since he’s so self-centered I have no doubt he would shrug off #2 and go on with it if things continue to go well.
I hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t see the Trump situation going well. The only thing he brings to the table is chaos and disruption.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I’ll try to make it crystal clear.
Trump’s supporters keep saying he’s the Republican who can beat Hillary; the others can’t. They also say that he’s the Republican who appeals more to Democrats and/or black voters; the others don’t or won’t.
No national poll reflects those things about Trump vis-a-vis the OTHER Republican candidates. So when you write :
… you are comparing apples to oranges.
One more clarification: I am not comparing Trump to previous candidates in previous elections. I am comparing his measured appeal to Democrats and black voters in national polls NOW to the measured appeal of the other leading GOP candidates in those same polls. Those polls show no advantage for Trump of the sort that his followers keep asserting. In fact, they show the opposite.
Therefore the assertions of his followers at this point are just a wing and a prayer. They keep saying it, but there is no foundation for it. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen over time; I simply have no idea, nor do they. But right now the evidence is against it, not for it.
Rufus T. Firefly:
You ask me to “name a Presidential election since Nixon-Kennedy where the most telegenic candidate lost.”
I’ll take up that challenge: Nixon, 1968, versus Humphrey. Now, neither were what you would call “telegenic.” But Nixon was worse than Humphrey.
Nixon, 1972. McGovern was much more telegenic. I was there.
Carter, 1976. Carter won over Ford. Neither was particularly telegenic, but Carter was always a bit goofy-looking, and Ford looked like a regulation guy.
Bush, 2000. This one was somewhat of a tossup, but at the time Gore was quite good-looking, and I though he was more telegenic (and articulate) than Bush. Of course, the election was very close.
Obama, 2012. Romney is one of the most handsome men on the planet, particularly for his age. I’ve seen him in person, and I know.
Now, you can define “telegenic” in some idiosyncratic way so that none of the above fits your definition. But I submit that by the usual definition, these are exceptions to your rule, and there are many of these exceptions, so many that I don’t think it’s a rule. But to my way of thinking and perceiving, those are cases where people who came across better on TV (more attractive, appealing, etc.) lost.
In addition, I question the idea that Trump is more telegenic than Hillary. To her supporters, Hillary comes across as forceful, strong, articulate, and attractive for an older woman. Not so to those who don’t like her. To his supporters, Trump comes across as funny, incisive, strong. He is no more physically attractive than she is, although both were good-looking when young (neither is young anymore). To his detractors, he’s a comical figure, full of bluster and bombast and meandering in his words, as well as insulting and crass.
As I usually do, I agree completely with Dorothy Rabinowitz. People are just damn sick and tired of hearing the kind of crap that Philly’s mayor just put out. And they think Trump is the only candidate who can stop it. Who else has called Hillary a liar repeatedly, and will do so face-to-face? (Yes, I know Carly has, but she is not getting any traction, and I think she’s out of the race.) Who else has said to Hillary, “You bring that ‘War against Women” up and I’ll make mincemeat out of you and Slick Willie?”
Remember “It’s the economy, stupid”? Who has been talking more about jobs? More about trade? More about jobs leaving the US? More about immigration?
Who else has said more clearly and directly, “I will destroy ISIS?” No equivocation, no conditions. “They will be gone.” The Iranians? “Worst deal in history. We didn’t even get our prisoners back!” The military? “We will have the strongest military in the world. Period.”
And much more importantly, Trump is a doer. He has actually done things, built buildings, businesses, brands. People know this. He’s not a lawyer — BTW, people hate lawyers — he’s not a first-term senator. As he put it in the first debate, when somebody (I forget who) asked him, “How are you going to build a wall?”, Trump looked him right in the eye and with an expression that said ‘how stupid could you possibly be?’ and replied, “I’m a builder.”
Is Trump brash, arrogant, conceited, narcissistic, not fully informed on many issues, probably not a social conservative? Yes. Would I prefer another candidate? Several. But beating Hillary is the most important thing, and I’m increasingly thinking he’s the guy to do it.
Richard Saunders:
You ask who else but Trump has called Hillary a liar (except Fiorina, whom you discount because she’s not doing well) and who else but Trump has said he will destroy ISIS?
As often happens, you are crediting Trump as being the only person who says what many are actually saying. I’ve noticed that over and over; because Trump gets the publicity and the others don’t.
Here are a few examples:
Rubio calls Hillary a liar (see also this). Cruz did, as well.
Cruz said he’d “utterly destroy ISIS.” Rubio talks about destroying it as well (see also this), as does Christie, unequivocally.
Same for lots of other topics (immigration, for example); I don’t want to take up more time demonstrating that, but elsewhere I’ve done so.
The above are just a few statements I found by Googling for a few moments. It’s not hard to find, if a person is interested in looking. But it’s been my observation that most Trump supporters are not interested in looking. Trump gets the publicity, they hear what he says, and they discount the others without wanting to learn the truth.
When challenged, Trump supporters say, “Well, Trump says it tougher than the others!” Or, “Well, Trump will do it and they won’t.” All just faith in him, for no reason that I can see. It’s like saying someone will win a boxing match just because that person does a lot of trash talking about how strong he is.
Trump is a businessman who has built buildings. I hate to break it to everyone, but that’s a bit different from the government building a wall on the Mexican border. Just because he equates the private sector and the public doesn’t mean the two are equated. By the way, about building the wall, I’ve written this post on what some of the difficulties are. It includes some links to articles that are well worth reading.
neo-neocon, sorry for being a bit scattershot in these comments. I’ve responded to telegenics in your later post, but relative to national polls;
I think I understand what you are saying and you are correct, but I am saying I don’t think those polls mean a lot today. Until folks are faced with 2 and only 2 people to pick from it’s hard to truly predict how they will react.
As a matter of fact; I’m not sure who I would vote for if face with Hillary vs. The Donald. Right now my guess is I would write in someone else (maybe neo-neocon!), but a few debates or events leading up to November may alter that.
There are certainly folks who like Bernie and don’t think they like Trump who may switch to Trump rather than Hillary. There are also certainly Republicans who say they could never vote for Trump who will, if give no other option. And, unfortunately, there are plenty of people who haven’t watched a debate and can’t name more than one candidate, if they can even do that.
I don’t disagree that you are accurately citing polling data, and I don’t disagree that the polls you’re using are proper polls. My point is it’s too early for national polling to be a reliable predictor.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Agreed that it’s too early for national polling to be a reliable indicator. (I’m not sure when it does become a reliable indicator, if ever 🙂 .)
But, as I’ve said, it’s all we’ve got, and it indicates trends so far.
Late in getting back to this thread from yesterday…
PatD,
Did you comprehend my comment about a trump – hrc debate? Did I call trump corrupt? No I did not, nor does anyone need to because he has admitted he has engaged in crony capitalism. Look it up yourself.
Rolled grenades, really? Do you honestly think the rolled grenades changed minds of the LIVs or the never vote for a republican crowd to suddenly realize the donald is the messiah the country needs to step into the boots of the current messiah? Do you want another messiah wannabe? If so, you and others like you are a danger to the idea that we must return to the concept that a republic is all that protects us, you included, from mob rule.
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