A simple repost from August ‘15.
I think there are two groups of Trump fans that COULD add up to the 55% he would need to take the brass ring, but I don't know how long he can keep the coalition together.
One group are those that love what he is saying and how he is saying it. Essentially crypto-fascists, they are the hard right 22%-26% of the electorate. The other group loves how he is talking, because both political courage and being connected to how real people talk has been lacking for so long in our politics.
Someone both unafraid to offend and willing to talk about the way things really are excites this group, but the inanity of Trump "policy" means little, because this group are actually highly disengaged by any policy discussion or conflict.
This is probably 35% of the electorate, but a chunk of those like Bernie Sanders, may intrinsically not like Trump, etc. Half are likely republicans so if you add 20% hard right and 15% disengaged Trump fans, you see the numbers you see today.
In fact, it’s IMO likely that Trump would be polling similarly today if he was running as a Democrat (in a normal open year, without a built in commanding lead at the start like Hillary enjoys).
I think it’s dawned on the political class that Trump is now the likely GOP nominee. Soon it may dawn on Hillary that he could be the favorite into the general, at least on national polling.
Hillary better not sleep on the Donald. When he buzzed the stadium in his 757 and arrived in a motorcade more elaborate than the president's, the film "Triumph of the Will" was my instant association.
That's no accident.
The lessons of Trumpism have hardly yet begun to inform, but a few things are clear. Trump is a highly experienced reality TV performer, and he knows his craft. Democracy in a technological society may begin to express itself in the tropes we have all been trained to expect in the past 15 years. Watch Trump play Ted Cruz like a fiddle in the primary process: form an alliance, then drop him like a stone when he becomes a liability. It's gonna be delicious, and Cruz cannot help himself. It’s like an off tackle-run in football... THE most basic play in reality TV.....
To be sure, with GOP control of both houses, and 70% of the statehouses, and a GOP molded federal judiciary, it may end up that John Roberts could be cast as the last savior of the republic, because Trump just may arrive at the White House with truly unprecedented power in American history.
Anyone with an open mind has wondered about fascism in America. Wondered how it might arrive, and who would support it. Dick Cheney had the right idea, but his pitch was from another age. Raw power and beating the little folk turns the plutocrats on, but Trump senses that middle class fear is the volatile accelerant of a one party state.
To truly debut American fascism in the form reality TV, one of America's more vile inventions, would be sublime irony, and y'all know that history is irony.
