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My Money Is on a Trump Victory
For what it is worth: Nothing is ever certain, and much could go wrong, but my money remains on a Trump victory. Why?
1) It feels a whole lot like Reagan in ’80 and Newt in ’94.
Reagan was disliked by the establishment (who liked Baker or Bush), viewed with suspicion by professional conservatives (they liked Phil Crane, not a divorced, former Democrat, big spending governor), and regarded with condescension by the media and left (who saw him as stupid and a dangerous cowboy). Those camps could not fathom the breadth and depth of his popular momentum.
Ditto the GOP taking the House in ’94 – I was on CNN five weeks prior to that election, and produced outright guffaws and rolled eyes from everyone when I said that the GOP would win not just the Senate, but take the House. The signs were all there but because the idea seemed so preposterous, they couldn’t see.
More recently Matt Bevin was left for dead by most of the smart money in his race for KY governor, and Brexit was “sure” not to pass. Trump is an extension of that zeitgeist for many – a long awaited reclaiming of control of their lives, of their country, of their self-identity.
2) Who are you going to believe, polls or your lying eyes?
I started asking people in the spring for whom they were voting. A surprisingly large percentage of not-supposed-to-be-a-Trump-supporter types turned out to be exactly that. That includes rich and highly educated people, women, blacks, Hispanics, and Muslims. A bunch of anecdotes, but interesting.
Everyone keeps saying this election is about Trump. But I have come to believe it really is about his supporters, who to a person are deeply versed in all his flaws and faults and support him regardless. For them, this is about one or more of the following:
- deep antipathy for Hillary and all she represents and would do,
- disappointment with a broken system they feel has ignored and in some cases harmed them for years, or
- a reclaiming of the country and their own lives and personhood.
They genuinely love and worry about their country and they want to feel proud again to be an American.
3) If what got incinerated was a phoenix, don’t bet against it rising.
If you’ve seen someone succeed at something five or six or nine times, how smart is it to bet they won’t do it the 10th time? How many times was seemingly everyone sure that Trump was finished – only he came back stronger than before? Many of us missed, time and again, the meta messages Trump was sending that galvanize his support and many miss it still.
4) Stages of Grief
For two-thirds of GOP voters, Trump wasn’t just another candidate – he was the one potentially viable candidate they feared. So with Trump triumphant, enter the stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance, each at his or her own pace.
You can tell many are at that nadir of depression by the way those who are the most depressed about Trump interpret Trump. Having a predisposition, as understandable as it might be, can hinder our understanding of what is happening. If someone starts with the assumption that Trump is ignorant, stupid, or dangerous, it rules out considering the possibility that comments like “founders of ISIS” could simply be brilliant hyperbole.
In contrast, allowing the idea that Trump is actually as smart as his overall track record, even discounted, indicates, permits the perspective that his repeated “gaffes” are purposeful, and a calculated strategy to garner millions of dollars in free media, wherein his larger point gets made for him, over and over. That’s no mean feat in a media environment stacked in favor of the left and Democrats and against conservatives and any GOP nominee.
5) It’s still summer.
I have found that many folks who are normally GOP voters but who are unhappy about Trump largely fall into two camps. The first are those who object because Trump isn’t solidly, reliably conservative on their priority issues. The second are those who, at bottom, find Trump personally objectionable, as does almost everyone they know, so they feel that the prospect of supporting him would violate the way they see themselves and wish to have others think of them.
These are real concerns that even many Trump supporters say they have worked through. But if folks are hitting despair in August, that means they have September and October to move to acceptance. Why would they? Because Hillary’s presidency and all it implies will become so much more real.
Between the choice of someone who will get pretty much every policy decision wrong, versus someone who might get some of them right, more and more people who presently can’t see voting for Trump will decide that on the “lesser of two evils” spectrum, they will be a Trump voter, even if they are not a Trump supporter.
One cannot discount the barrage of negative ads that will come against Trump. And who knows what new revelations will shift the ground yet again? But particularly with increasing Clinton pay-to-play revelations, if by early October the social opprobrium shifts from “how could I possibly support him?” to “how could I possibly enable her?”, Republicans will win the presidency.
Published in General
Also she is overlooking the fact that many of the new voters that did come out in the GOP primary ended up voting against Trump. It isn’t hard to see how badly Trump’s image has gotten tarnished, and there well may be people who don’t like HRC voting just to vote against Donald.
Ha! Ha! Just exactly whose depravity are we actually speaking of here?
Yup. #4 is particularly wishful, in a list of rather wishful points. I guess we’ll see in November.
May I just say a few words to you Nevers. Please, please,kindly refrain from your usual attacks. There are loads of discussions on Ricochet where you have adamantly espoused the Hillary talking points over and over again. Please let us who support Trump enjoy each other’s conversation on this post however misguided you believe us to be. I love what Heather is saying and hope and pray she is right.
I was very active in politics in Washington state at the time and disagree most decidedly. Within our own caucus we had several influential members who were Anderson supporters having nothing to do with Carter and everything to do with country club Republicans who vehemently dismissed Reagan as a radical conservative and a stupid actor to boot. We also had the Bush establishment wing of the party who fought Reagan’s nomination tooth and nail. It was strictly the rank and file who loved Reagan and would not toe the party line.
I am looking for the argument I can use on people who don’t like Trump and don’t like Hillary. Pointing out that Trump is not Hillary is not going to win them over. Arguing with NeverTrumpers is not going to win much. What we need is the people who are only now starting to pay attention, and all they see is a Cheeto-colored blowhard and a decrepit crone who stole Margaret Hamilton’s laugh from The Wizard of Oz.
Some of us here would beg to differ, Pauline
Trump loves our country. Hillary sells it for cash. It comes down to that.
If this is true, then electing him would serve him right.
As a Blue collar person, born and raised, I suggest you are off the point in linking Americans of this strata to fascism.
I see far more fascism in the educated beyond life experience elites on both the left and right.
I believe the phrase for this belief system is the Nought-Right. A dangerous group, incessantly scribbling tomes about U-Hauls
He loves his country. Obama despises it and Hillary sells it for cash. That’s conservative enough for me in this choice. Which do you prefer?
Pure anecdote, of course, but an amazing thing happened to me this weekend. I spend it with my thoroughly progressive family and extended family and we talked politics for the first time in at least 25 years! Why? Well we all made fun of Trump, a ripe field indeed (hiding the fact that my husband and I will vote for him to try to keep Hillary out of the White House).
Then it was on to Hillary who every single one of them they despised. We talked about all the scandals, the emails, the Clinton Foundation (they especially despised this and called it her slush fund), all the lies. They feel she is corrupt to the bone, is trying to buy the presidency and say the will not vote for her under any circumstances. The even felt having Bill Clinton in the White House would be creepy with all his women!
In the end that said they were either sitting the election out, voting Stein or a write-in candidate. Again, pure anecdote but maybe Hillary isn’t quite the shoe-in that everyone thinks.
No. Trumps shortcomings as a candidate are no ones fault but Trumps. If Hillary has picked up on these points and is using them, well we can’t say we didn’t warn you.
First, it’s Trump. In my humble opinion, you need to lower your expectations. For me, being not Hillary is enough in a binary decision.
Here’s what I posted earlier. It’s all I got for Trump.
Trump is a capitalist; Hillary a socialist. Trump favors national sovereignty; Hillary wants D.C. to be Belgium over the States. Trump will be forced by Congress to put jurists from his list on SCOTUS; Hillary would put BHO on it. Trump will be a placeholder in the Oval Office; Hillary will complete the destruction of the Republic 0bama started. That is more than enough for this voter.
And at this point, I’m only trying to convince the fence sitters. I’ve given up on the nevers. They don’t want to be convinced.
Great post jeannebodine! You should do so more often.
Does this say you are going to stay in the face of those who will vote for Trump, no matter what?
@goldwaterwoman, Around 40% of those who voted for Anderson–per exit polling, which is hard data–would have cast a vote for Reagan if he was the only choice. That leaves quite a few disaffected Carter voters that were syphoned away from the incumbent.
As Anderson’s % of the vote was not decisive in either case, it’s a bit irrelevant, but most of those people of whom you speak that opposed Reagan during the primary got back into his fold long before November.
Thereby, John Anderson was a mixed bag. He pulled *some* Reagan votes, no doubt, but he also pulled Carter votes more than a Never Trump movement could pull from Clinton.
Anyway, I come from your average middle class family that worshipped the feet of Reagan from the start.
Trump is simply not Reagan, and the data post-conventions suggest a much deeper party split than existed back then, which should be examined.
Also, Never Trump people don’t want to deny you any joy. They have none themselves because there’s a belief an opportunity was squandered.
@jeannebodine is completely correct when she says Democrats dislike Clinton, but hard data supports that anecdotal experience in a way that this article does not support a Trump surge.
In such an environment it comes to turn-out, and you must ask yourself… Who has the better turn-out machine? I don’t think that’s Trump.
Truer words were never spoken. The worrying thing is the vitriol dripping from their fingers as they type comment after comment in their thinly-disguised attempts to elect Clinton.
I don’t care who has the better machine. Trump speaks for millions of voters who want to upend the establishment as we know it. I, and all the Republicans I personally know, support Trump. There’s the end of it.
I was insufficiently clear: I’m voting for the cretin, not the criminal.
You are going to need better arguments if you want to win. Do you?
Trump almost missed the Minnesota ballot. I doubt he is going to put in place a real competent vote getting operation. The main turnout he is going to increase is the hispanic vote against him. Hispanic registration is way up. That is going to cause permanent changes in election demographics for a group the GOP has struggled with nationally. Its looking bad.
Amen.
Thanks for the kind words, Columbo. Lately I’ve just had time to check in, get my blood pressure up and exit quickly.
Lois, there is some truth in what you city, especially in the inner cities. But every member of my extended family, college graduates all, were very involved in the suburban turn-out machine. The were true believers – knocked on doors, had rallies, took people to the polls. And they brought their small children with them who sang all the Obama-worshiping songs. Ugh. They were true believers. How many true believers does Hillary have? We know Trump has them, will they be effective?
@goldwaterwoman I can’t speak for the Never Trump world, but I have no vitriol. It’s exactly because I am Never Clinton that I find this election so disturbing… so sad.
If @columbo is right and the only thing we have is a binary choice, then we still must examine the race as the race is going, yes? Can we agree on that?
None of us knows what will happen in November, but there are indicators. Early voting is right around the corner, and I can see where the horses are on the track. Is it mean spirited to observe that one of those horses is winning?
The whole Trump thing reminds me of when my students come to me at a certain point in the term to ask about their grades. It may still be *possible* for them to get the final grade they desire, but I can’t dismiss the performance that shows their average in that moment, even if I am rooting for them, even if I want them to be the Valedictorian!
Hey. I love my students. I want them to do well. But I know by a certain point in the term that they’ve established a performance pattern. Good for them if they break it for better! Good for them if they prove themselves worthy of an A! Good for them if they exceed my expectations!
But it’s always up to them, not me, to change my opinion of their work.
I don’t disagree with this, but, if he loves the country so much, why is he not doing more to save it? He is in a very special place. Of all of the people in this country, he is far and away in the one best position to prevent a Clinton presidency. I get that he’s willing to spend some time giving speeches in various parts of the country, but winning an election entails more–much more–than that. He’s used to heading up organizations. He understands the tone is set from the top. So far the tone is that field organization and media buys–the hard work stuff– take second place to personal magnetism. That’s wrong. Love of country in an election means working one’s butt off. So far I haven’t seen it.
@jeannebodine, I definitely hear what you’re saying. I know lots of progressives who–to their credit–are questioning Hillary’s ethics. There was a reason Bernie Sanders earned more votes in the primary than Donald Trump. (!!!)
So I definitely think the Democrats will have depressed numbers.
However, you have people on the right who are equally disgusted with Trump… People who have voted for Republicans their entire political lives and will not pull the lever for him.
I don’t know. I’m just saying what I think, too. I could be completely wrong–Yes!!! I could!!!–but I think polls now show the problem for Trump is that he has not only disaffected a large swath of his base but alienated other voters, too.
I think it will come down to the better “get out the vote” operations in some states, which gives Clinton a rather sizable advantage.
Personally, I wish that we would start talking about the down ballot. I may never agree with some people on this thread about Trump, but I’m on board when it comes to wanting to counter Hillary.
Republicans who can’t show up for the top of the ticket are still very important allies of those who wish to hold onto Congress.
That’s important to remember, I think. That’s where we can unite.
TKC: “As a Blue collar person, born and raised, I suggest you are off the point in linking Americans of this strata to fascism.”
I called Trump a “blue collar leftist” because many of his opinions are very similar to the old unionist/leftist approach to things like support for protectionist anti-free trade policies, a mercantilist view of world, support for Universal Health care, cradle to grave welfare, a wealth tax, cronyist decisions like KELO, an effort to take the profits of the Keystone pipeline venture and a willingness to get into bed with Union mobsters like the Gambinos and Geneveses.
Trump clearly favors big government control and is decidedly against the first amendment and free speech. Free expression in many ways is the “secret sauce” of the American Experiment which allows anyone to pursue any dream, innovation or invention without the thought of the government coming and taking you out. Trump already has put a chill on free speech. He supports thuggery, and has supported the chilling of free speech by his most vicious supporters. He has sued and/or threatened with bodily harm untold adversaries. He is decidedly fascist and uncomfortable with traditional American liberties and values.
We have two sides, at least, in this exchange, so it works better when you ascribed character, behavioral, or ideological traits to Trump that you support them specifically. Even if the things you say have some basis, not everyone has witnessed these things so they can relate to your words. Don’t do as Claire did relying on some housing discrimination complaints from the seventies to label Trump a racist.
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. He needs our help too.
Don’t know where you got your numbers, but according to Real Clear Politics: Trump received 13,300,472 and Bernie Sanders got 12,029,699. Trump got more primary votes than any Republican candidate ever despite a field of 17 candidates.