2016 April 30^th

As I wrote yesterday, the “stop Trump movement” has been stopped and now it’s on to California with a howdy do to Indiana on route. Trump will be the Republican nominee, Clinton will carry the Democratic standard… and Trump will lose in a landslide. As the nursery doggerel goes, “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men can’t put the Republican party together again.”

Trump very successfully appeals to certain voters; their demographics are well known. They are a broad section of a very narrow group. There are few “minorities,” fewer women than men and very few well-educated people. Trump has said, “I love the poorly educated;” they love him right back too, and nothing he says will pry them lose from their Donald. He is their savior and his followers view him exactly as religious people view a savior. If it comes to that, they will viciously attack anyone who denigrates their Donald. We have seen that happen at Trump’s rallies. Trump encourages these physical attacks against challengers because he has a “thing” about rejection. Any criticism of him produces a disproportionate response, which he assumes will stifle the critic. This belligerence plays into the mind-set of his fan base whose first response to frustration is usually rage. (What else do they have?) In this way, they can identify with Donald Trump even though their differing financial circumstances seem to make any identification impossible. They can see their attitudes as just like billionaire Donald Trump’s attitudes. Naturally, they adore him.

While Trump gets large crowds at his rallies and wins primary elections, he is not doing all that well if you look closely at his appeal. Trump has managed to get 10.5 million votes total in all of the primary contests he’s entered so far. At this stage, George Bush had about 20 percent more votes than that. Then there is the inescapable fact that Trump’s opponents in these primaries won 15 million votes, or about 50 percent more than Trump. Many more Republicans voted against Trump in the primaries than voted for him. While the stop Trump movement fizzled there was a stop Trump movement; was there a stop Bush (43) movement; was there a stop Barak Obama movement; a stop John McCain movement? What has Trump done to deserve this honor except to convince his party’s leaders that he cannot possibly win the general election?

Now we have a candidate who is destined to win the nomination but lose the general. Who would like to be his running mate, the Vice Presidential candidate associated with the crushing defeat of the head of the ticket? Chris Christie seems to have little future in New Jersey and he’s already endorsed Trump so he has very little to lose that he hasn’t already lost. He’ll be Trump’s guy.