Why Trump-phobia is for rubes

Let's start with this piece:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/06/2...

There's a bunch to chew on in here. Let's start with the cash-on-hand situation:

Despite raising $3.1 million and loaning himself another $2 million, Trump began this month with less than $1.3 million cash on hand.

Clinton, by comparison, raised $28 million and started off June with $42 million in cash.

Now, some people might imagine that this vast disparity doesn't count for a lot. After all, Donald Trump is getting a lot of free time in the news media, isn't he? What needs to be remembered here is how Barack Obama won a second term in the run-up to the 2012 election, by attacking Mitt Romney in the swing states. If this scenario repeats itself this year, Trump will have no real means of fighting back, especially if the mass media can be well-paid to ignore his campaign, as they were when they were ignoring Sanders to prop up Clinton's campaign.

So where are the big moneybag Republicans sending their money, if not to Trump? Clinton. And why not? Clinton has their positions, and even if "The Federalist" wants to pretend that they'll be in "principled opposition" to Clinton, we're talking about someone who has had plenty of practice cozying up to Republicans. Doug Henwood, on Clinton's career in the Senate:

What Hillary did do was make friends with her Republican colleagues. While ideologically dubious, it did have the long-term benefit of softening potential opposition to her future campaigns for the presidency. As Daniel Halper (a smart, nonrabid conservative) writes in his recent book Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine:

I spoke to many, if not all, of Senator Clinton’s biggest opponents within the Republican Party during her time as First Lady. On or off the record, no matter how much they were coaxed, not one of them would say a negative thing about Hillary Clinton as a person — other than observing that her Democratic allies sometimes didn’t like her.

She buddied up to John McCain and attended prayer breakfasts with right-wingers like Sam Brownback of Kansas. She befriended Republicans who had served as floor managers of her husband’s impeachment. Even Newt Gingrich has good things to say about her.

Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee this year by defeating fifteen rivals who were offering the voting public toxic crap in running against each other, by getting a lot of free media from the mainstream press. Trump has thus climbed an easy Republican hill to find himself before the insuperable cliff that Clinton will represent in the November election.

None of these Republican rivals had the web of connections that Hillary Clinton has, and the Democratic Party primary offers prima facie evidence that this is so. It was easy to witness the vast number of celebrities who lined up to parrot their vacuous rationales for a Clinton vote, as well as the wealthy connections in each state who maxed out at Clinton fundraisers and the political connections in about half of the states who could be counted upon to provide election "irregularities" and thus to grant Clinton the margins of victory she wanted.

Meanwhile, a lack of money for Trump means a lack of staffing for Trump:

-- The FEC reports show that Trump has about 70 staffers total, one-tenth as many as Clinton’s 683. But, instead of rushing to staff up, he bragged about it during an interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News last night.

Will Trump's political party save him? No.

- One of the problems with Trump depending on the RNC: Many state party leaders don’t like him. Because he’s not building his own field operation, he’s depending on the official GOP apparatus. In Ohio, that means leaning on loyalists to Gov. John Kasich, who is withholding his endorsement, the Columbus Dispatch notes.

What will the Republican Party do?

-- The Stop Trump movement now counts 400 delegates as allies, quickly transforming what began as an idea tossed around on social media into a force that could derail a national campaign,” Ed O'Keefe reports. “While organizers concede their plan could worsen internal party strife, they believe they are responding to deep-rooted concerns among conservatives about Trump. … ‘Short-term, yes, there’s going to be chaos,’ said Kendal Unruh, co-founder of the Free the Delegates movement. ‘Long-term this saves the party and we win the election. Everything has to go through birthing pains to birth something great.’ Unruh said her cause is winning support from ‘the non-rabble rousers. The rule-following, churchgoing grandmas who aren’t out protesting in the streets. This is the way they push back.’”

Not that the challenge to Trump is likely to succeed or anything. Expect Trump to have enough "success" in national polls to scare the nice liberals into voting for Clinton, before his inevitable loss. (55% of them, according to Bloomberg, are already there -- I'm sure Clinton will want the rest.) Otherwise, he's a decoy. He's there because Bill Clinton suggested in a phone call last year that he might "strike a chord" with the Republican base, and in all likelihood he's doing a favor for a friend.

*****

So unless Bernie Sanders can pull a rabbit out of a hat at the Democratic convention, or unless the Republicans can rally the American public around a candidate who will be the product of a delegate revolt, or unless Hillary Clinton herself actually faces indictment for what are most likely her crimes (in open air and with the whole of the elite class backing her), Hillary Clinton will be our next President.

Perhaps such assurances will satisfy some of the Trump-phobes. For the hardcore ones, however, Trump-phobia has an ulterior purpose -- to get support for Hillary Clinton from those (in reality the vast majority of us) who have nothing to gain from a Clinton presidency. Trump-phobia is therefore not likely to go away until the Presidency is firmly in Hillary Clinton's hands. Trump-phobia is about this: "don't build a 'third party,' don't build any sort of alternative to elite rule, because omigod Trump is a fascist, and if he takes power we'll have war and genocide and all that." I have yet to find any real evidence that Donald Trump is serious about his positions, or that he'll be granted a free pass to do what he wants in the White House by a Republican Congress more likely than not to hate him.

Now, there is, to be sure, a kernel of truth in Trump-phobia. Unfortunately for the Trump-phobes, however, it has very little to do with Donald Trump himself. What's scary about Trump is his appeal to what I'm calling "Trumpism," or, more simply, right-wing nationalism. To be sure, The Donald has said things that were racist, sexist, rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. And for this he has acquired a number of white supremacist followers. So indeed Trumpism, the ugly residue pushed to the surface by Donald Trump's campaign, should be feared.

The problem with merely fearing Trumpism, in isolation from the rest of reality, is that Trumpism gets "pushed to the surface," and thus becomes an effective bogeyman for nice liberals, as a response to elite policies which impoverish the masses. (The liberals, meanwhile, have been voting for the particular brand of elites making these policies since Michael Dukakis challenged George H.W. Bush in the 2008 Presidential election.) This is why I argued earlier that a vote for Clinton will not stop Trumpism. When you push policies that are in fact what Trump is promising now, amidst a shrinking middle class and a revolution of reduced expectations, people like Donald Trump appear to be the Great Alternative Candidates that everyone should support. Gopal Balakrishnan:

On numerous occasions since the 90s the left has rallied to a center-right candidate to ward off the far-right and the results have been disastrous. Not only is the far right strengthened by bolstering its credentials as the only real opposition force to the establishment, the left is drastically weakened at the expense of the center-right.

There are a number of signs, now, that another Clinton presidency will further impoverish the masses -- most ominous among them are Hillary's promise that Bill will "fix the economy" when she's elected. Yes, that's right, Bill Clinton, big participant in all those Peterson Foundation meetings. Austerity is practically guaranteed, then, and eventually someone far more serious than Trump, while advocating Trump's agenda, will ascend to the White House as a reaction.

Look, without the help of neoliberalism, American Right nationalism appears to have been unable to acquire sufficient hegemonic power to govern on its own. Nobody in the Sixties was genuinely afraid that Barry Goldwater or George Wallace would win the Presidency. But if we want the reign of the next Donald Trump to be short and sweet, we're going to have to start building alternatives to Hillary Clinton. Now's a good time for that.

NOTE ON ETIQUETTE: I'm not interested in a "third party." That's just other people's name for it. What I want to see is realignment.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

SparkyGump's picture

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

lunachickie's picture

just sayin'...

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Cassiodorus's picture

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

SparkyGump's picture

She's more vulnerable than any other democrat nominee I can recall. She will no longer will have the DNC flying cover for her by limiting the number and timing of the debates. Her closeness to republicans isn't going to do her any favors amongst the republican base and many, many democrats.

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

Cassiodorus's picture

Why should she bother? She's ahead in the polls and ahead in money and if worse comes to worse she'll commit election fraud.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

WoodsDweller's picture

Clinton has an election fraud advantage over the Republicans?

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

Cassiodorus's picture

want to commit election fraud for Trump? They don't like Trump.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

edg's picture

Supreme Court. Federal judgeships. Agency heads. There are thousands of appointments made by a president. Why would the Republicans in power want Hillary Clinton making those appointments? They don't like Clinton.

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Cassiodorus's picture

http://time.com/4317643/republican-party-donald-trump-ted-cruz-hillary-c...

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/23/exclusive-prominent-gop-neoconservat...

Then go back and read Henwood's comments about Republican attitudes toward Clinton in this diary.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

edg's picture

Neither convention has been held. Most voters don't begin to pay attention until after Labor Day. There's still a lot of hard feelings from the Republican primary. Just think about how many disappointed Bernie supporters are threatening 3rd party or Trump votes or non-votes. Get back to me in September/October and we'll see how things look then. June prognosticating is no better than armchair quarterbacking.

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Cassiodorus's picture

Cassiodorus has evidence. edg, not so much.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

thanatokephaloides's picture

Why would the Republicans in power want Hillary Clinton making those appointments? They don't like Clinton.

Rank-and-file GOPpers, sure. But the big money donors? They loooove them some Hillary Clinton! It's a win-win-win situation for them, as our Diarist correctly demonstrates.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

is whether or not they will uphold and expand Citizens United. All other issues are wedge issues that they can easily exploit no matter how the Supreme Court rules.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Clinton appointees will be pro-corporate in the mode of John Roberts. Republicans are just fine with that.

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2016 general election debate schedule

First presidential debate: Monday, Sept. 26, 2016, at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio

Vice presidential debate: Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2016, at Longwood University in Farmville, Va.

Second presidential debate: Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016, at Washington University in St. Louis

Third presidential debate: Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

I suppose Clinton could pull out and not participate in any of them, but it would make it look like she's got something to hide and/or is afraid to debate Trump (or whoever the Republican nominee is,but I'm assuming it will be Trump.)

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and more: Rushdie's thesis, stated in the lede of the WaPo piece you linked to,

THE BIG IDEA: Salman Rushdie floated last fall that Donald Trump is a Democratic plant whose ultimate goal is to get Hillary Clinton elected president. To many conservatives, this feels less and less facetious.

has gained significant new cred on the right (which are scanning the Hillary Emailgate stories like crows spotting road kill) from the Guccifer 2.0 docs. Whether those docs, purported to be hacked from the DNC, are real or fake is beside the point; the right is willing to believe anything that impugns her - and, anyway, copious leads similar to G2's have panned out over the last year (just as Drudge's scandalous and universally maligned Lewenski story panned out) so the chances that those docs are real are anything but negligible.

But I digress. There are a couple of facets on one of those Guccifer 2 docs ("2016 GOP Presidential Candidates" dated March 26 2015) that haven't been properly analyzed, imo: one is the Hillary/DNC's assessment of the GOP field of credible candidates in the middle of that doc, a list that totally ignored Trump as credible. That's not suirprising, of course, since nobody in their right mind thought he could get the nod back then. But then there's the following tactical approach to the media that they propose to attack that list of candidates:

Tactics

Working with the DNC and allied groups, we will use several different methods to land these attacks, including:

Reporter Outreach: Working through the DNC and others, we should use background briefings, prep with reporters for interviews with GOP candidates, off-the-record conversations and oppo pitches to help pitch stories with no fingerprints and utilize reporters to drive a message.
• Releases and Social Media: Where appropriate these attacks can be leveraged for more public release, particularly the attacks around specific issues where a public release can point out that Republicans are outside of the mainstream.
• Bracketing Events: Both the DNC and outside groups are looking to do events and press surrounding Republican events to insert our messaging into their press and to force them to answer questions around key issues.

I emphasized the first bullet point to highlight that aspect of their media strategy, ie, covert planting of stories in the MSM. Again, keep in mind that the GOP will assume that Hillary and the DNC have done this. It's a conspiracy theory they've harbored for forever and this document gives that CT some credence. But here's the direct follow up to that "revelation" in the DNC doc that they most certainly have connected to it:

We look forward to discussing this strategy further. Our goal is to use this conversation to answer the questions who do we want to run against and how best to leverage other candidates to maneuver them into the right place.

The punctuation isn't done correctly in that sentence I hightlighted there, but the implication is nonetheless inescapable: Rusdie was right; Hillary maneuvered, via covert media machinations (read: Trump's much ballyhooed muti-million dollar free media coverage that everyone acknowledges is a real thing) to place Trump, the absolutely weakest and least credible GOP contender, into his current presumptive nominee status, a position that gives her (a POTUS candidate whose favorability is so low that she can't even break past the 50% barrier against the likes of Trump) the best chance to win in November despite her many glaring weaknesses.

The GOP will not allow Trump to get the nod. He's toast and the world-wide Brexit catastrophe is the icing on that particular cake.

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Cassiodorus's picture

I"m wondering how they'll pull it off. Aren't most of the delegates pledged to nominate Trump?

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Pluto's Republic's picture

…that the Primary votes are simply a "Voter Preference Poll" and not binding in any way. The Party picks the Party's candidate, regardless of the Preference Poll outcome.

I read somewhere the mechanism for releasing the delegates and the Party nominating a Party Candidate prior to the voting at the convention. Trump would be notified in advanced and might be barred, himself, from attending.

It looks and sounds messy, but we've entered the year of living outrageously.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

Despite all the attempts by Hillary, Trump and the media to group them together. Bernie can raise millions in $27 donations at the drop of a hat. Jill Stein can also do that. Hillary and Trump can only salivate.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

WoodsDweller's picture

First, this isn't a tight race like the Democrats. There is nobody in second place - Cruz? They hate him even more. They don't have to just nudge things by 10%. Trump has gotten more primary votes than any Republican candidate ever. They don't have a SuperDelegate mechanism, and even that wouldn't be enough delegates.

Second, they have to replace him with someone else. Who? Cruz? Nope, he would lose even worse than Trump in the general, and he has no allies. Kasich? Maybe. He actually ran and won his home state (did he win anything else?) and has a handful of legitimate delegates. Jeb? He ran, got a couple thousand votes in Iowa and zero delegates? Romney? He didn't even run.

Winning is out of their reach, they have to look at the down ticket races and salvage what they can. Anyone (even Trump) with an R after their name will get at least 35% of the vote. It's about turnout. The base will turn out to vote for Trump that they elected overwhelmingly. They won't turn out for anyone else if Trump is stolen from them. Even Clinton hatred won't be enough, they hate Bush and Romney almost as much.

Trump will be the nominee. His poll numbers will bounce back. The money will flow in (though a lot will flow to Clinton). They don't have any options. None. As big a disaster the Trump candidacy will be, every other option is worse.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

He might be preferable to the oligarchs.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

CaptainPoptart's picture

Trump will be the nominee. His poll numbers will bounce back.

The Trump people have been lying low, but will begin attacking the anointed one once she has secured the nomination. No need to do so while the Dems would still have a fall back position in Bernie. Also, as stated elsewhere in the thread, nobody is paying attention now nor will they until September. So there is time to fix things, and when the calculation is made that a Trump trouncing will decimate the Rs down ballot candidates, the money will begin to flow into his campaign in big chunks.

The attacks on the email server and especially the corruption surrounding the Clinton foundation will make for good ad material in the battleground states. This will certainly drive up her unfavorables at a time when hopefully Stein will be siphoning off the progressive vote. So despite the current situation it's still game on.

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I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. - e.e.cummings

Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

To "Troll" the Republican Party and disrupt their primary process, inflicting as much damage and confusion possible...

Clinton Trump.jpg

With punch list efficiency, he loudly with no regrets, took the favored Republican side on every issue, even the ones that they whisper privately out of the side of their mouth, surrounded by friends, but never in public, and would be vehemently denied if an accusation was ever registered claiming it was their position...

Trump Wall.jpg

The more outrageous he got the more his followers supported him...
He couldn't say anything wrong in their eyes...
When protesters infiltrated his rallies his "Brownshirt Goons" roughed them up and threw them out as part of the show...

Trump brownshirts attack protester.jpg

He could even say his daughter Ivanka was boinkable...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7yf8-Lk80]

With all that excitement his "Exit Strategy" of doing the damage, and then quitting the campaign after punching out a few of the "Perennial Front-Runners" of the party, wasn't happening...

How this is going to finish out I don't know...
But I don't think Trump ever intended it to go this far, and I don't think he actually wants to be president either...

I don't see any real opposition to Hillary coming at this point...

edited to add last " in title

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
lunachickie's picture

more than anything else, why Bernie hasn't suspended his campaign yet.

I don't think Trump ever intended it to go this far, and I don't think he actually wants to be president either...

I'm with you on that. I keep running all the other scenarios through my head, how Trumpsky got there to begin with, and I keep coming back to sweet old Bill. Too many martinis over cigars one summer night up in the Hamptons, and a plot was hatched and a new Star was born.

Because come on. It's quite brilliant, actually--it takes attention away from Hillary's negatives very nicely. Well, it would have, if that pesky old Senator from Vermont hadn't come along when he did. All of a sudden, the plotline was out of everybody's control, though a lot of other control suppressed Sanders, but it did nothing to change the GOP circumstance.

Karma's a bitch sometimes, and this would be some karma worth savoring Wink

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Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

"I keep coming back to sweet old Bill. Too many martinis over cigars one summer night up in the Hamptons, and a plot was hatched and a new Star was born."

A couple of "Overprivileged Frat Boys" planning their next prank...
Punk The Republican Party...

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
edg's picture

You are so blinded by Hillary that you think she is capable of orchestrating a nationwide conspiracy to get Republicans to elect her. She couldn't even manage a small diplomatic outpost in Libya without getting the staff there killed. She couldn't even manage an email server in her basement without it getting hacked by every 1st grader with an iPad. She's so afraid of the press that she hasn't given an interview in over 200 days.

You're making her out to be some gigantic unstoppable foe who can do no wrong. This is pure and utter bullshit. If she's so all-powerful, how in the hell did some unknown old guy from Vermont come close to beating her? If she's so all-powerful, why is it that Trump, arguably the worst Republican candidate in generations, in essentially tied with her?

And as for your last claim, that the GOP won't let Trump get the nod, that is so far beyond belief as to be laughable. Despite what you think, Republicans are not stupid. Yanking the rug out from under the primary candidate who received nearly as many Republican votes (against 16 competitors, mind you) as Hillary received from Democrats would be incredibly stupid and would tear apart the Republican party. You may wish that would happen, but it is silly and fantastical to think that it will happen in this section of the multiverse.

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Deja's picture

I still don't know what to believe about that outpost and the staff that were killed. I know she lied about what caused it for a very long time.

And, I'm not convinced that old guy from Vermont actually lost to her. As in, the official story is that he lost, but if none of the bullshit had taken place, I feel certain he'd be the official nominee.

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edg's picture

I don't think anything could have prevented the deaths at the outpost. Which makes it even more troubling that she lied about it. It's like she's a pathological liar and just can't help herself.

If it were not for the cheating, vote rigging and other bullshit, I agree that Bernie is the winner.

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featheredsprite's picture

but she hasn't appeased the Republican voters. It would difficult for her to win against Trump and possibly even harder to defeat someone who isn't such a buffoon, like Kasich.

But the Dems will not dump Hillary and the Administration will not indict her.

I notice that you're Green. Wise move in my opinion. Pouring the Bernicrat energy into the Green Party is an option.

There was a time when people said "Bernie Who?" and now folks say "Jill Who?" There are a little over four months left to change that. If this is what we're thinking of doing, we need to help the Greens get ballot access all over the place.

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

lunachickie's picture

will actually be counted, or we're going to have to vote for that jackass to keep Clinton out.

All this other stuff is fairly meaningless if we can't get a handle on that much.

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it makes far more sense to take them from the major rival, since that effectively makes a 2 vote difference (+1 for A, -1 for B). Taking a vote from a "not enough votes to even concern yourself with" fringe candidate only nets A a single vote, without the extra damage to candidate B.

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it will not be voting for Trump. That's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

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Cassiodorus's picture

we could perhaps fix the Green Party so that it supports its candidates and so that its primaries are something more than beauty contests maybe?

Are you going to Houston to the GPUS nominating conference?

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

There is a worldwide movement against the Oligarchy, Brexit is just the latest example. Despite what the media is pushing, there is more Clinton phobia than Trump phobia across the country.

While realignment within the Democratic Party sounds like the nice and clean way of preserving the current system it will not work. There is not a safe and clean way out of this mess. The current parties have to lose dissolve and make way for new parties. The best chance for this to occur is Trump wins the Presidency, it will fracture the current Republican Party. A Clinton loss will destroy their political leverage and the current power brokers.

The best thing we can do at this time is to support the local candidates running on the progressive agenda. Bernie will not run third party, he gave his word and this man has impeccable creditability. His leadership and creditability is key to maintaining the movement. We need to have the movement unite behind Jill Stein. If we are united and her candidacy takes off she could have a shot at winning. Defeating both Trump and Hillary would be the safest path forward, but difficult.

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Cassiodorus's picture

in the UK has been spreading panic about the Brexit, and continues to do so to this day. "The racists are going to take over!" A wise few among them have gotten out of this reactive mode to recognize the Brexit as the unintentional product of thirty-eight years of neoliberal policy from Thatcher to the present day. This is why neither Cameron nor Corbyn could save England from a four-point loss in a Brexit referendum. See e.g. Richard Seymour:

http://www.leninology.co.uk/2016/06/eu-referendum-vote.html

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

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At the Albany rally on Friday in a response to a question about running on the Green Party with Jill Stein. He made a commitment and he is sticking to it.

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but I despise him for all the same reasons I am repulsed by Hillary.

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edg's picture

Though not for all the same reasons as Hillary, because she is far worse in some areas than Trump could ever be. Honesty for one. Trump speaks his mind no matter what people think. He's a bully and an asshole and a braggart, but he is relatively honest. Hillary, on the other hand, hides her true nature behind carefully crafted little lies that are difficult to disprove. She's more slippery than a wet Cottonmouth and potentially far more dangerous.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

Dems always lead in pre convention polls, and post convention the numbers always firm up for Goopers. Happens every cycle.

Trump's getting a lot of flack from the neocons in the GOP leadership right now, which is helping suppress his numbers a bit, but that won't last once the rank and file tunes into Hillary's acceptance speech.

Whatever misgivings Republican voters may have about Trump will be albino pale compared to their visceral fear of President Hillary, and no amount of RINO talk from Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell will change that one bit. In fact, their intransigence may even help Trump.

Of course Trump will play up the Hillary Fear for all its worth, make deals with the leadership where he can, and peel off enough independents (many/most of whom also hate her) to form a Stop Hillary movement that will be quite formidable come November.

On top of all that, throw in a Kasich VP nomination and suddenly Hillary's famous Electoral College Math doesn't add up.

You heard it here first.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?