How did the GOP end up with Trump or Cruz?

Succinctly stated, the same crowd who were ebullient over electing a Republican-controlled Congress had become despondent over its performance. They were angry and felt that the Party big shots had discredited themselves so, already having turned to ideological radio entertainers for their marching orders, they became enamoured of a schlock tv celebrity that brayed sweet nothings in their ears.

The foreign guy's principle claim to their affection is that he is loathed by his colleagues and is not Trump®.

 

They are primarily for entertainment value and both the polls themselves and reactions to them can be quite entertaining.

 

Perhaps, but having a historically low favorability rating speaks volumes. Trump will lose the female vote, the Hispanic vote and the black vote by large numbers. But he will win the low information, white, red neck vote.

He will lose, no matter who the Democrats nominate, and by a huge number.

 

All of that appears to be true.

After that Romney Landslide! that had them so giddy in 2012, Repubs conducted an inquest, and initiated an outreach to Blacks, Hispanics, women, and better-educated younger Americans.

Trump sabotaged that initiative, effectively erecting a wall around the Party to keep all those folks out.

Angry White Guys seem to like it that way, but being alienated from America does not win elections.

They can cavort in the virtual nation conjured up by their ideological radio entertainers, or they can summon the testicular fortitude to honestly confront the real one.

 

DEAD ON!

 

Who on the Democrat side can beat Trump and what's your rationale ?

Bernie ? A closet Communist who will make us the new Argentina petri dish for financial failure ?

Hillary ? A Lying Cheating Criminal with an in-explainable body count that has trailed her and her husband for decades, all the while growing.

Yeah that will happen.....

 

According to the polls, everyone on the Democratic side can beat Trump. It is months until the election, but Trump would have to turn those numbers around dramatically.

Bernie destroys Trump in match-up polls.

Hillary destroys Trump in match-up polls.

You are confusing what you think people should think of Trump and the Democratic candidates with what they actually do think.

 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The GOP knows Trump cannot win the General. Any Dem can beat Trump, even old Bernie.

 

Simple, its because that is what most republicans want. Many republicans dislike the term progressive even though their party is progressive. The status quo can only be maintained for so long before forces within the party become disenfranchised and seek a new status quo. The same thing is happening in the DNC as we speak.

Most of us older people long for the days of old while the younger generation in general wants to shake things up... and the republicans are not immune to this inevitability. I think this is harder on the republicans as many tend to be establishment oriented while the liberals are seen as more progressive.

 

Exactly... They also knew he could not run, or win a debate, or a single state, could not become front-runner, could not win in the South, could not win when the field winnows, could not win the nomination....

 

Incredibly dumb luck.

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You are ignoring all the polls. The man us hated by Hispanics, blacks, and women....so. GO DONALD!

 

Polls had Jeb Bush easily winning the nomination a few months ago. You are ignoring these failed polls, failed 6 months of daily doom and gloom and imminent demise of Trump campaign's predictions, and people making them having egg all over their faces.

 

The GOP has a structural problem. It has created a structure that is very good at winning more 'local' elections - district level & state level. This has been achieved primarily by highly motivated activists & their supporters organizing very effectively and targetting the people who are the most reliable voters - older angry white folks. As a result the GOP controls an overwhelming majority of State legislatures and/or Governorships as well as both houses of Congress (for now). This is a system where hyper partisanship is a distinct advantage, or at least it has been.

The problem is that most Americans aren't hyper partisan conservatives. In fact, not all GOP voters are hyper partisan conservatives. This is a problem in a number of ways. First, it shuts out people who might lean toward the GOP but are not doctrinaire Conservatives. There seem to be quite a few 'Reagan Democrats' among Trump's supporter base. Once you get past the bombastic nativism a lot of Trump's policies are centre-right (In US terms). They think of themselves as 'conservative' but feel shut out by the 'Establishment' (actually, they are shut out by the 'grass roots activists' too). There are elements of the Tea Party in this, though not as hardcore conservative. Second, it means that the party spends every Primary season looking crazy before settling on a not entirely crazy candidate who is stuck with the stink of the craziness.

It also makes it increasingly difficult for the party to attract newer voters who aren't angry & white. Try to attract more female voters - some clown starts talking about 'legitimate rape'; try to attract more Hispanic voters & some clown brands them as criminals; try to attract any black voters & a legion of clowns talk about how stupid, lazy & criminal black people are. All of this is, of course, taking place inside a bubble fuelled by the same Conservative Entertainment Complex that continually reassures the faithful that they are right while feeding them a regular diet of carefully edited information guaranteed to stroke every prejudice.

This year the 'perfect storm' that has been building since the second term of the Bush Admin finally broke. The angry, crazy, organized folk in the base broke for Cruz. The angry, crazy, disorganized people not really in the base broke for Trump. The not quite as angry & not quite as crazy people the base derisively refers to as RINOs ended up splitting their votes until all they had left was a guy as inspiring as a dishcloth. Now nobody has the votes and the process that will deliver the Nominee is guaranteed to alienate enough voters from one or other camp to lose the election....and that is before the negatives each candidate has kick in with the broader electorate.

What a revoltin' predicament.

On a related note, this year has seen the emergence of the first organized 'angry' challenge to the Democratic 'Establishment' and its broader model since the late 60s. The Sanders candidacy has seen the angry young white folk who first coalesced in the 'occupy' movement getting organized. This has the potential to be as successful & perhaps as destructive to the Dems as 'movement Conservatives' and the 'Tea Party' have been to the GOP. Much as TPers felt let down by Bush, these folk feel let down by Obama & want a more 'pure' progressive politics. The success of the Dems at national level has been a s broad church in class & ethnic terms. This hasn't translated to local level. What remains to be seen is if the Sanders folk commit to changing the party or throw a giant sulk & withdraw to activist movements & online whining.

 

Why are we even mentioning Cruz. Cruz is losing because most Republicans don't like him. After he gets blanked in NY tomorrow, I believe he is mathematically eliminated.

Trump is winning because most Americans with a job want to keep it. Trump is one of the only candidates to publicly oppose TPP. I know it's radical because Hillary supports this increased offshoring to cheap offshore child labor in East Asia, but most Americans don't. Remind me why it's so crazy to want to keep your job?

 

Very true.

It is striking that many more Americans seem to have "conservative" values than are inclined to vote for this round of GOP candidates. As the base has pushed candidates to the right, more moderate conservatives have fallen off the party wagon.

Yes, but it has been much more restrained in its attacks on the Democratic party per se. For instance, Sanders avoids denouncing "the Democratic establishment" and goes after money in politics in general. Compare this to how Trump and even Cruz have ripped into the GOP establishment.

Yes, it has the potential, but it doesn't look like getting anywhere near that bad.

The Sanders supporters who claim that won't vote for Clinton is not a good sign for the Democrats, but traditionally, Democrats who say they won't vote for the party candidate they opposed in the primaries change their mind when the general election comes. Many more Hillary supporters claimed that they wouldn't vote for Obama than Bernie supporters presently claim that they won't vote for Hillary, but when the election came, the Hillary supporters turned out to vote for Obama after all.

Of course, even if those Sanders supporters stay home as threatened, that just gives us our present poll predictions, under which Clinton beats Trump or Cruz.

That sort of unifying for the general election could potentially happen on the GOP side too, but seems much less likely. I don't see Trump supporters throwing their weight behind some other candidate or conservative Trump-haters supporting Trump in large numbers.

There are enough conservative-leaning voters to put a "conservative" president in the White House, but none of the candidates that would be acceptable to the general electorate are acceptable to the base.

 

All the while everything with Trump's name on it is made in China. THINK....!