By the way, that quote from my post that you quoted in your comment was actually not something I said. I was quoting an article by—of all people—Matthew Yglesias.

Just wanted to clarify that.

Now for your question:

How many of his supporters are going to work for, contribute to, and vote for another GOPe liar in any putative 2016 election after they conspire to get rid of the candidate that they support in no small part because he fights the GOPe?

I don’t pretend to have my finger on the pulse of the GOP establishment. My guess is this, however: they think that there are still enough people besides the group supporting Trump that will help their candidate get elected. It’s the same sort of problem, in a way (or at least analogous) to the situation Obama faced in 2008 when he knocked out Hillary, who did have a lot of support. I recall that a lot of Hillary supporters were very bent out of shape at how Hillary had been treated by Obama and his people, and they didn’t want to work for his election.

So a certain percentage of them didn’t. And he won anyway. He won for many reasons. One was that he apparently had charisma (at least for a lot of people), and he was the historic first black candidate of a major party. The second was that he faced a weak opponent in MCain. There were others, but those two were big, and he didn’t need the disaffected Hillary people in order to win the general.

I see the possibilities for 2016 as similar, except minus the charisma and the historic black president part. If the establishment’s favorite son is Bush, and he were to be nominated, he has little charisma and he’s not a first anything. With or without Trump’s supporters, I don’t think he could win.

But if the nominee is Cruz (not the establishment choice) I see a different picture. Don’t know if he could win, but he would have the advantage of having stood up to the establishment even in the Senate. Of course, the most fervent Trump supporters will say “not enough,” and “he’s just a tool like all the others.” But that’s not the set of all Trump supporters, not by a longshot. A lot of them respect Cruz, and see him as the insider-outsider, and I believe they would support him (especially because it’s clear he is NOT the establishment pick). He also has a “first” as a Hispanic, or half-Hispanic, although the left considers him an honorary non-Hispanic. He lacks charisma, but since the Democrats have an even weaker field now than McCain was, the lack of charisma might not matter.

But what is the GOP establishment to do? If it comes down to Trump or Cruz battling in out, they dislike them both but would probably choose Trump.

Not if my crazy left-wing uncle was running for the presidency, I was the Republican governor of a state, all the cameras were on, and it was shortly before election day.

It is quite possible we are in a global deflation aka recession, possibly headed to worse. We have no horses to pull us out of the economic morass into which we have been placed by the Ruling Class.
The last Depression was remedied only by going to war, with much deficit financing, possible because entitlements had not eaten up the Federal Budget, and citizens still had money to lend Uncle Sam (war bonds). Can’t do that now.

I think it will get bad this year. It’s been bad, but it is going to get worse.

Which is far from an endorsement, but I don’t see letting the GOPe drive me into a panic to vote for their chosen loser, like I did in 2008 and 2012.

In fact, if the “establishment” field doesn’t thin by the end of February, Trump will become the GOP establishment’s candidate because he will be the only one who can stop Cruz, whom they hate. Trump is not ideological, they can “do business” with him. Cruz has principles that are anathema.

The GOPe has to be the most pathetic political class ever–except maybe the Chicago Republican Party.

The plain reality is that right now he is on course to win the nomination unless some concerted effort is made to stop him.

Just for giggles, has anyone pondered what will happen if there is a concerted effort by the GOPe to stop Trump and it works? How many of his supporters are going to work for, contribute to, and vote for another GOPe liar in any putative 2016 election after they conspire to get rid of the candidate that they support in no small part because he fights the GOPe?

Even if you are making the GOPe assumption that the plebians who support him are inconsequential; those plebians who support him are those who do the work in campaigns.

In 2014, we started the campaign actually in October 2013. I volunteered no less than 4 hours and up to 28 hours a week up to election day, based on the promise that the Republicans would actually fight the Democrats if we gave them the Senate. I was far from the most active campaigner here. Not one Democrat won in our county, not one Leftist ballot issue won in our county. And from the moment the polls closed, the GOPe betrayed us and collaborated with Obama, and haven’t stopped yet.

So why should I work for a GOPe candidate who will just do what the Democrats want? Why should any of us? And how do you intend to win without us?

What? The establishment GOP has absolutely no interest, incentive or desire to fight the democrats. If they had, they would have actively opposed them. They would have understood the majorities they gained were a signal the electorate wanted them to fight the democrats, to reverse the course.

The establishment republicans and democrats have wanted exactly the same things which is why they have co-operated. Any appearance of opposition was ‘failure theater’, say they oppose but put in place things to enable dems to achieve their goals (lowering requirements for a treaty approval, then claim they didn’t have the votes to stop it).

That’s why the establishment candidates are failing. The electorate doesn’t trust them to be conservative. They understand that it’s not incompetence keeping them fighting the democrats, its a complete lack of desire or intent to oppose them. Pepsi and Coke- the parties are just branding not substantive differences in philosophy or approach to government.

You habitually misunderstand most of what I write about Trump, and/or misrepresent it.

You think I think “Trump is a moron”? I happen to believe that Trump is smart, and have never said he’s stupid or anything close to it. For the record, I always said that Obama was smart, too. And other people here were arguing that he wasn’t.

Let me state right now (and I’ve said this before): Trump is smart.

If you actually read the incredible number of words I’ve written on Trump already, you’d see that my critiques of him have nothing to do with dumb and everything to do with character, trust, and philosophy.

In terms of your objections in your comment, however, I have little doubt Trump could understand the policy papers at his site quite well, for the most part. His problem is not lack of ability. My opinion is that he doesn’t seem familiar with them when he speaks, either because he hasn’t put in the time or perhaps because for some reason he doesn’t want to talk to the American people about it.

I have also observed that Trump “misunderstands” things like the difference between eminent domain for a bona fide public project and eminent domain for a Kelo type taking, and he mixes the two as though there is no difference. I’m watched and listened to him him do that, over and again, and I have long thought his “misunderstanding” is purposeful rather than actual. I think he understands the difference only too well, and he’s just mixing them up because he wants to defend his own attempt at using Kelo-type reasoning/arguments against Coking and Holmes in his lawsuits. I suppose it’s also possible he hasn’t bothered to learn the difference, and delegates that task to his lawyers. But I’m assuming that, whichever it is (and I think he knows the difference) he has the intelligence to learn the difference and that it suits his purposes to seem to not understand.

The issue is not about Trump’s intelligence; my point has consistently been about his character and his intentions. I actually don’t think I’ve ever insulted his intelligence.

I wrote in my comment to you:

Do you really think that I’m referring to Trump’s written policy papers at his website (which of course he didn’t write, and mostly cannot even speak intelligibly about)?

I certainly don’t mean “cannot” in the sense of “is physically and mentally incapable of.” That would be absurd; he obviously could learn this rather simple stuff and speak about it if he cared to. It’s “cannot” as in G. Washington’s cherry-tree story, “I cannot tell a lie,” meaning “something in me will not let me do this.” It’s not an absolute inability, it’s a choice of how to be and how to present oneself.

If you don’t see that Trump has “self-delusions of grandeur” you simply have not studied what he’s said to people, including tons of it prior to running for office this year. That’s not to say he doesn’t have accomplishments; he certainly does. But he’s also had quite a few failures, made many promises he doesn’t keep (or are fraudulent, such as Trump University), but most of all it’s his braggadocio about just about everything.

Perhaps you read my word word “intelligibly” as being the same as “intelligently”? I used the word “intelligibly” from the root “intelligible,” which means: “capable of being understood; comprehensible; clear.” I will add that what I mean is this: for the most part, Trump declines to speak in any clear or comprehensible way about the details of his position papers. He either seems to have not much actual interest in those details and really is not all that familiar with them, and/or has little interest in explaining them to the public when asked. My guess is that he thinks that will bore people and sound wonky, like Cruz, plus he doesn’t like to be pinned down, and he feels he needn’t bother with a lot of it to win.

I have criticized him for many, many things, but never for being dumb.

Yes, he’s had books ghost-written, and I’m sure Trump is quite familiar with most if not all of what’s in them. In fact, despite the ghostwriters, I am pretty sure that they are based on his own ideas. I have not accused him of not being able and willing to speak both intelligently AND intelligibly about The Art of the Deal. But that is a very different thing from his willingness to speak intelligibly about his position papers since he has been in the 2016 presidential race.

You write:

[Trump’s] ghost written or written many books. I’m pretty sure he knows what is in them because he proscribes the same policies in his ad lib speeches. There is no teleprompter on his stage and he always speaks ex tempore. It might sound primitive and grandiloquent to your finely tuned ears, but it resonates with his audiences and the voters.

But I’ve not suggested he doesn’t talk intelligently about his books. I assume he can, and I also assume he does. I assume that’s one of his strengths, actually. I was referring to the way he speaks about his policy papers and the details in them when he is interviewed or in particular in a debate, and asked specific questions about them. Basically, he brushes off most of the questions and goes into very little detail, and even sometimes gets the details wrong. I think the exception is probably his tax policy, which he’s spoken about in more detail, but I would expect him to be more interested in talking about that.

Nor have I ever used a word like “primitive” to describe Trump; I think the entire persona he presents to the world is a well-thought-out self-presentation designed to present a certain persona and image to the public.

Because Neo and other commenters are convinced the Trump will not do what he says. I believe he will if given the chance.

I do not believe many others who are still in the race. So, to try to convince me or someone else to not vote for Trump and toss him the pile, you’d first have to convince me he’s lying. I’ve read his book from 2011 and I agreed with most of what he wrote. I’ve watched several old videos of him, and I see that he was kind, considerate and thoughtful…so I know he has the ability to be ‘presidential,’ which is different than his campaign self. And, to be honest, if you watched Ted Cruz in Iowa going full-on spiritual, do YOU think he will be like that in the White House? So, we all know that a campaign is different than a presidency.

Anyway, thanks PatD for expressing some of how I feel about Trump.