Supposing you follow the mainstream media, the far-right media, or the progressive media, here is some perspective for you: You might have missed something important in the wake of the primary election hysteria. The two primaries, especially the New Hampshire Primary, reveal Trump’s weaknesses as a national candidate for anything. except ruling his dysfunctional party.
He’s already lost a national election, lied about it, and helped blow his party’s control of Congress. The problem with the media hysteria about Trump right now – they are addicted to him and the money he makes for them – is that the structure and reality of the campaign are almost precisely the same as they were four years ago.
There is no rational path to victory. Politicians know it; pundits don’t. They aren’t permitted to say aloud what they think in private.
Of course, Trump is going to win the Republican Nomination. Apart from the so-called pundits, almost everyone seems to know that, even many of his rabid and brainwashed followers. It is not a shock, nor is it a wondrous triumph.
“As Mr. Trump marches steadily toward his party’s nomination,” reported an analyst for the New York Times this week, “a harsher reality awaits him. Outside the soft bubble of Republican primaries, Mr. Trump’s campaign is confronting enduring vulnerabilities that make his nomination a considerable risk for his party. Those weaknesses were laid bare in New Hampshire on Tuesday, where independents, college-educated voters, and Republicans unwilling to dismiss his legal jeopardy voted in large numbers for his rival, Nikki Haley.”
I like to pour through the polling results after elections; they always reveal more than I learned from the news.
This year is no different. Here are some stats you may now know:
In New Hamshire, 44 percent of Republican primary voters were independents: Ms Haley won most. Four in 10 voters who backed Haley said their dislike of Donald Trump was a more critical factor in their vote than their disapproval of Haley, according to the exit polls.
More than 90 percent said they would be unhappy if Trump won the nomination for a third time. Even in Iowa, exit polls show that 55 percent of people who identified as independents backed one of Trump’s opponents.
Those are not juggernaut triumphs by any description, and Trump is already claiming the primary voters are the strongest in history for any candidate.
In Iowa, about 2 percent of eligible voters vote in the caucuses. Outraged that Haley would continue her campaign, Trump showed his class again. He threw another tantrum and said anyone who contributed to her campaign would be forever banned from “Maga World.” I’m sending my donation to her this morning via priority mail. In another world, Trump was a foot-stomping bully in an out-of-control middle school recess.
In my school, they would have beaten the crap out of him. In MAGA land, they pay candidates to lie. There is no shame, no disgrace.
Supposing Joe Biden is a weak candidate due to his age, foggy presence, and the relentless hammering of his opponents. In that case, Trump is a disaster due to his increasingly apparent mental illness and increased memory problems. And who is Hunter Biden anyway? If you care, light a candle and put it in the window.
Trump is not a healthy or uplifting candidate, and he remains intensely disliked by most people in the country, especially those mentioned in the article above. They are the people who break the log jam and decide elections in polarized America these days. All have one thing in common: they hate the idea of Trump and his chaos tearing apart the country again. His cruelty and dishonesty increasingly bother real conservatives, who tend to dislike the government but support democracy.
In November, the cowardice and shame of Trump and his followers will cost them another election and probably also keep them from control either of the House or the Senate, let alone the presidency. Since his followers adore him to the exclusion of everyone else, MAGA will stumble on when he fails, an idea but degenerate as a movement. It is about nothing but hate, vengeance, and grievance. I doubt that is a winning platform for most of the country. It is a pandemic waiting to burn itself out.
Trump is the controlling presence in his party but far from that in the nation. Governor Ron DeSantis is the candidate true conservatives like, yet not the groupies voting in the primaries voted for him. By rights, he should have won. Like him or not, he is sane and efficient. Losing to Donald Trump is about the most humiliating thing I can recall in all of politics.
Whatever drives Trump’s campaign, it isn’t his policies or proposals for helping the country. It feels like an ego trip for the embattled and insecure, primarily angry white men and women who women scare. They can have him. There are no limits on the supporters he betrays.
The dynamic for this election is almost precisely the same as the dynamic for the last one. There aren’t enough people in America to elect Donald Trump for another four years of chaos, bullying, and revenge. Trump is one of the crudest, most disturbed, and self-destructive public figures in American history. Biden will lose some supporters and gain more when the idea of a new President, Trump, sinks in.
Like DeSantis, Trump believes he can save his ass and punish his enemies with money. The DeSantis campaign, which started with nearly 300 million dollars, reminded us that money alone can’t do it or even come close. Now, Trump has to persuade people who haven’t ever voted for him and don’t like him to vote for him.
This is in a year when he faces lawsuits, indictments, an awful governance record, and his own political ignorance and incompetence.
Trump is one of the most destructive figures in the history of American politics, and he is going to lose again if he doesn’t manage to blow himself up once more way ahead of the election. Schoolyard and middle school insults do not make a viable Presidential candidate. Joe Biden is not the alternative many people want, including me, but I’ll be happy to vote for him if Donald Trump is the alternative.
And I won’t pin a label on myself.
Trump doesn’t gain support; he only knows how to rage and offend. He is a genius at getting money from people and sending the media into a frenzy. The only other thing he does well is being cruel to and eviscerating people who oppose him. It wasn’t enough before, and it’s not enough now. Donald Trump leaves a bad taste in almost everyone’s mouth, even those who claim to love him.
Joe Biden won the New Hampshire Primary and wasn’t even on the ballot. Fortunately for him, his opponent is deeply offensive to the people he most needs to win. This is a struggle between two of America’s least popular public figures. Or, to put it another way, the winner will be the least offensive, giving Biden the edge he needs.
“The general election starts now,” said one respected Republican pollster, “and you’ve got the two most unpopular political leaders going who will be facing off against each other. It’s the lesser-of-two-evils election.”
Well said, I think, and if there is one national contest Donald Trump is sure to win every time, it is how to be the greatest evil of evils. His brain-fogged followers want that from him, and he loves to oblige. It makes him feel like a real man.
And now, he can’t handle a real woman who fails to bow to him. Trump has repeatedly proven himself a liar; now is his chance to show us that he is a coward as well, one who can’t bear to be challenged by a woman without falling to pieces. It seems to be one of his greatest fears.
Trump will walk away from it. It’s the one thing he always wins, except the sore and offensive loser the tle. He will win that every time, and since he loses much more than he wins, look out for it.
