(If faithful readers of the blog will permit me the indulgence of resurrecting this post from March 2 of this year.)
Hattip to commenter Ernst Schreiber for the idea behind this post.
As faithful readers of this blog know, I am a strong opponent of Donald Trump. I view him as an ignorant blowhard, a Democrat in a skimpy Republican disguise, and a disaster in the making of epic proportions if he should be elected President. I will not vote for him if he is the Republican nominee, an easy call for me since if Illinois is in play Trump is heading for a landslide win in any case. However, unlike many Trump critics my opposition to him does not have anything to do with his electability in the fall. If Clinton is the Democrat nominee I think it likely that Trump will win. Here is why.
1. Clinton Smear Machine-Unlike most candidates I think Trump is largely immune to smears. Throughout his career he has been subject to a largely bad press. Except for cannibalism and incest Trump has been charged with every crime imaginable and with some that truly do tax the imagination. I doubt if there is much more that could be revealed to harm him. Like Huey Long, the Kingfish of the Depression Era, he thrives on bad press and attacks.
2. Colorful Career-As loathe as I am to admit it, there are elements in Trump’s career that will probably play well with the voters, including this incident, go here to read it, where Trump intervened to stop a violent mugging in progress.
3.  Wrong Clinton-I always said that Clinton had preternatural political skills, however that was Bill Clinton, who could probably have won an election after being discovered in bed with either a live boy or a dead girl. His spouse on the other hand is a miserable politician who got beaten like a drum by Obama in 2008 and who has struggled to beat an elderly socialist this year.
4. Empty Promises-Democrats have thrived over the years on making empty promises to voters with a straight face. No one can out empty promise Donald The-Mexicans-Are-Going -To-Pay-For-The-Wall Trump!
5. Outsider-This is clearly a year when the voters want an outsider. Trump, the croniest capitalist, would seem to be the consummate insider, except when compared to Hillary Clinton. In the primaries Trump has been able to paint himself as an outsider, and compared to Clinton it is not quite so laughable a claim.
6. Scandals-Beltway pundits clearly underestimate public anger over Benghazi. Tie that in with the e-mail crime scandal, and doubtless a lot of juicy tidbits being excavated by Trump’s opposition research, and Clinton will be on the receiving end of endless negative attack ads that would have bounced off her husband but likely will do damage to her.
7. Jugular-Republicans frustrated by a too gentlemanly form of campaigning by their candidates will have nothing to complain about from Trump. He will begin with throwing the kitchen sink against Clinton and proceed on from there.
Do I think Trump is a shoo in? By no means. He has given the Democrats plenty of ammo to ramp up Black and Hispanic turnout, the Ace in the Hole for Democrats. A fair number of Republicans like me will be sitting this one out.  However, Trump is not the usual type of Republican that Democrats campaign against.   Trump will be campaigning as a populist Democrat and I think frustrated Democrat strategists will often feel like they are fighting against themselves. If Trump is the Republican nominee, God forbid, throw out the rulebook for the fall campaign, grab some popcorn and fasten your seatbelts, it will be an election campaign straight from the Bearded Spock Universe.
I would say #4 is an admission, perhaps an u witting one, the republican voters ca be as stupid as democrat voters.
Let me rewrite the above comment, since it got accidentally posted before I could finish it and edit the typos.
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I would say #4 is an admission, perhaps an unwitting one, that republican voters can be as stupid as democrat voters.
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This Trump movement, as some pundits have called it,makes me wonder what Eric Hoffer would think, particularly the primary process that gave trump the GOP nomination.
Not so much Republican regular voters as the additional voters needed to win in Presidential election years. In any case it was interesting to me how little weight promises this year, other than Trump’s promise of the wall, seemed to get this year. Clinton, for example, promised “free” tuition at all public colleges, but little seemed to be made of it. I suspect that ObamaCare has made the public wary of anything “free” from the government.
“This Trump movement, as some pundits have called it,makes me wonder what Eric Hoffer would think, particularly the primary process that gave trump the GOP nomination.”
Hoffer distrusted populist movements of all types, but he did support Reagan who combined conservatism and populism into a formidable fusion.
I am glad your prophetic skills have improved, Donald. I am currently travelling to the left coast on business. God help me when I arrive in the capital of a certain state where the Che Guevara spoiled brats are protesting. I dislike Trump, but greater is my satisfaction at seeing the teary eyed frustration and impotence of the delicate snow flake flower children.
I never felt Trump could win the general election and that feeling increased a lot after the groping and forced kissing alleged revelations. I think Paul Ryan thought the same. What is going through his mind now about his plan for republcans vs Trump’s thinking. Yet 53% of white women voted for Trump….and 81% of Evangelicals did so.
“Yet 53% of white women voted for Trump….and 81% of Evangelicals did so.”
Because they were desperate to avoid the alternative.
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The thought has occurred to me that God may not be done with us yet, despite all of our failings and sins. Why? Because He took Antonin Scalia at just the right time.
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Scalia’s death was a great call to the American faithful to WAKE UP! We needed to be shaken out of our complacency that our form of government could never be turned against our liberty, and that the attempts we had seen up to now would never achieve a critical unrepealable mass. Scalia’s death told us that we cannot always count on the best people, and that we need to ensure that others will be able to take their place where they are most needed. Of course we knew this from our intellects, but too many did not know this from their stomachs. The outcome of the election shows that enough of us heard the call.
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Antonin Scalia would smile at the thought.
60 Minute interview with Trump went well for Trump and later Trump and family. Lesley Stall was outclassed in the little boxing she attempted with him. Her big left jab was asking at the end whether the campaign hurt his business brand. Over hand right coming from Trump over the jab…Trump and Ivanka agreed it didn’t matter at all…”who cares about hotel rooms filled…this is so much bigger”.
Lesley looking materialistic by comparison after their answer….savy Trump counterpunch which he really meant.
Donald, Trump’s nomination proves that republican voters can be just as uncritically stupid as democrat voters. Probably the reason Hoffer supported Reagan is because he saw that the Reagan Revolution, as it was dubbed, wasn’t a cult-like movement the way the Trumpism has been. Reagan would have never gotten away with a fraction of what Trump,has gotten away with. I mean even republican voters claimed to have originally supported other candidates have shown Trump,an devotion they would have never shown their original. That includes Cruz supporters, despite Trump’s despicable treatment of Cruz and his family.
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And despite the Access Hollywood tapes of Trump bragging about forcing himself sexually on women, there are some orthodox Catholic women lionizing Trump. His “I’m sorry I got caught.” “apology” makes me wonder if DaDonald was a regular reader of CAEI. It eerily reminds me of Mark Shea’s insincere mea culpas. Speaking of Trump and Shea, didn’t you have a post how they are two of a kind?
“Donald, Trump’s nomination proves that republican voters can be just as uncritically stupid as democrat voters.”
Not really. Most polls indicate that most Republicans rallied around Trump in order to defeat Hillary rather than to back Trump.
http://www.people-press.org/2016/10/27/2-factors-underlying-voter-preferences-positive-and-negative-voting/
If empty promises attracted Republican voters as much as they do Democrats, the Democrats would be dominant at every level of government except for the White House.
Greg-
a lot of women, Catholic and otherwise, are familiar with the “locker room” talk, and how much of a connection it has to reality.
Those that were “uptight” during high school, even more so; who do you think a certain kind of guy likes to spread lies about?
If Trump had actually done anything even slightly questionable, he would have been paying through the nose for it. For heaven’s sake, does anyone seriously think that with all the attempts to destroy various beauty contests, the contestants being actually physically objectified like that would go away? Just being rich is usually enough to have accusations leveled against you– the lack of them for Trump suggests that he didn’t listen to the “good advice” and just pay a settlement, because that’s cheaper. (Remember how that hit Cain, even though it is standard business practice?)
Guys lie about sex to protect their ego. And Trump’s got a lot of ego to protect.
******
Trump’s a barbarian; Hillary’s a child-sacrifice promoting post-Christian who is actively scared and hateful towards the military. Don’t like the options, but the choice is pretty dang clear.
Foxfire:
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There is a big difference between locker room talk and and 59 year old man bragging about sexually assaulting women.
Greg-
Feel free to enlighten me on the huge distinction between guys having what they think is a safe conversation where they lie about their sexual exploits to try to one-up each other, reaching levels of implausibility that are stopped only by fear of eventually tipping the scale so much that one of the other guys will call bull****, and… well, the exact same thing, but caught on tape and saved for a decade.
Guys you hang around don’t do that? Good, you have good taste in friends and associates, and if you’ve got sons and haven’t heard this from their friends, you did an awesome job of parenting. That doesn’t make it rare, even in guys who should be old enough to know better.
Again, there’s a big difference between young guys bragging about “scoring” and a 59 year old man bragging about sexual assault. You know that.
No, I do not “know” a thing which is false, and you haven’t answered the multiple reasons to believe it is false, just insisted repeatedly that it is.
*******
“Locker-room talk” ends with maturity and morality, not age.
Have you seriously never heard the gray-haired guys trying to one-up each other, sometimes claiming things that are physically impossible? It’s practically a standard in the “midlife crisis” trope.
Hang around the beer tent at a fair sometime — it’s distasteful, but they tend to be louder.
You don’t know the difference between bragging about mere sexual conquest and bragging about sexual assault? Really? What Trump brags about on that Access Hollywood tape is clearly the latter.
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If that is the case, then whatever credibility you may have had in talking about chastity has vanished like an infant burp in whirlwind.
You seriously think idiot males trying to one-up each other sexually has a “but that would be sexual assault” rule?
The “dude, just get a beer or two in her and she’ll rip your clothes off” standard brag would be rape if it were true.
If that is the case, then whatever credibility you may have had in talking about chastity has vanished like an infant burp in whirlwind.
Ah. Being the target of stuff you want to deny exists means that my ability to talk about chastity is gone. THAT makes sense– first hand experience in being the target of fallen human nature makes one *less* qualified to comment on it.
Let me guess, you haven’t run into the habit of the girls who are chaste being the targets of this stuff, specifically because they’re not known quantities.
Just like you think only teenagers do locker room talk.
And you still haven’t answered a single one of the reasons to believe that it was false.