Posted on 11/30/2015 3:09:16 PM PST by conservativejoy
As Republicans watch Donald Trump lumber across their electoral landscape laying waste to their best-laid plans for 2016, the GOP has moved through the first few stages of grief. First there was denial: He'll never run, and if he does nobody will support him. Then came anger: Who does this jerk think he is? Then bargaining: We could maybe imagine liking Donald Trump, so if you support him, please don't be mad at us! All they need is to get through depression before they move on to acceptance.
Along the way, Trump's opponents and the party establishment have tried to take him down. They called him a demagogue and a carnival barker. That didn't work. They argued that he had supported liberal policies in the past (even said nice things about single-payer health coverage!), so he wasn't a real Republican. That didn't work. They argued that he'd be an electoral disaster, bringing down other Republicans along with him. That didn't work.
John Kasich aired an ad tying Trump's attacks on various minority groups to persecution by the Nazis, echoing what many commentators said about the whiff of fascism hovering around Trump's statements on American Muslims (only the latest group he has attacked). A shadowy group called Trump Card LLC is planning a wide-ranging attack on his candidacy. To which the infinitely thin-skinned Trump responds that if if he isn't "treated fairly" by the party, he might just mount a third-party run and guarantee a Clinton victory.
It should be more than clear by now that the people who support Trump don't care about any of this stuff. Not only that, but everything that the rest of the world finds abhorrent about Trump seems only to deepen their commitment. He doesn't know anything about policy? He's an outsider, not like those Washington politicians! He's a buffoonish vulgarian enacting a 10-year-old's idea of what a rich guy acts like? He's a winner! He hates Mexicans? Well those damn immigrants are ruining our country! He's a misogynist creep? Shut up, feminazis! He wants to register and surveill American Muslims? Damn right!
So here's the only way the party can defeat him: Do nothing.
It's the strategy of no strategy. It moves right to acceptance, saying that there just isn't anything that can be done about Trump. Maybe he does have a ceiling of 30 percent or so of the party (around where he is now in the polls), and if that's true, what Republicans need is an alternative. One alternative, not 12. Someone who can begin to consolidate that other 70 percent around him.
And it may happen without the party having to do anything about it. Three candidates have already pulled out, and a couple more may go before the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1. Soon after that, candidates who haven't scored anything resembling a primary win will begin to drop off, until there are only a few left.
Some of the people who write the checks are getting this idea. As the Washington Post reported, "More than a dozen interviews with high-profile GOP financiers revealed a pervasive confidence that the party's rank-and-file voters will ultimately reject Trump's brand of politics" , so there's no need to put money behind a concerted effort to take him out.
The truth is that all the party's voters won't be rejecting Trump. It's certainly possible that his campaign will prove incapable of the nuts-and-bolts work required to actually get primary voters to the polls. But by now it seems pretty clear that the voters who like Trump actually like Trump. It isn't because they haven't learned enough about him, and it isn't because they haven't thought enough about their loyalty to the party. He's the one they want.
So the party's only hope is that the seven out of 10 potential primary voters not currently behind Trump find their way to somebody else who can accumulate enough delegates to wrest the nomination from him. Those party bigwigs may be able to help that person, but it won't be by holding 100 more focus groups to figure out what turns voters away from Trump.
Acceptance isn't easy. In this case it requires people who cherish their own power and influence to acknowledge that they're powerless in the face of the bizarre and terrifying monster that is the Donald Trump campaign. Maybe they could do some meditation, or take up a hobby between now and the convention in July. Better that than fooling themselves into believing there's a strategy out there to take out Trump that's just waiting to be found.
I have a theory about Iowa:
Cruz wins it.
Momentum into New Hampshire for 2nd place.
Nearly clean sweep in the South.
Trump makes several badly placed remarks sucking oxygen out.
That’s my theory / hope.
I don’t mind if we get Trump. I prefer Cruz. I still see the path above as reasonably achievable. There is lots of time. Cruz has ground game, and nobody’s seen that yet.
I have a sense of what his vulnerability is, but my thoughts are not the same as yours. His mouth is one of his strengths. It attracts huge attention and then he owns the downside.
Every hour of every day there’s a new “Dump Trump” article with some “strategy” for stopping the Trump juggernaut. It’s boring.
There has NEVER been such a deluge of opinion on how to stop Obama and the Marxist Democrats. Maybe if the GOPe(or whoever else)had put just a fraction of their effort into THAT endeavor instead of bashing Trump 24/7 perhaps the country wouldn’t be in such dire straits.
I never knew it was the job of the GOP to take out the GOP front runner. I wish they would use half that much resources fighting democrats.
My view says that he’s already planning, that his billions have paved the way for serious media buys, that his production capacity has material ready to disseminate, and that his organizational skills are winning in Iowa and New Hampshire.
We’ll see, but people keep this guy is a mental lightweight when in reality he’s a knockout artist.
My view says that he’s already planning, that his billions have paved the way for serious media buys, that his production capacity has material ready to disseminate, and that his organizational skills are winning in Iowa and New Hampshire.
We’ll see, but people keep THINKING this guy is a mental lightweight when in reality he’s a knockout artist.
Now they are saying, yeah we have the House and Senate but we won't do what you want and you are wrong to want it.
Get rid of Obamacare? Nope.
Defund PP? Nope.
Stop our country from being invaded? You racist!
I will vote for my Representitive because he actually has tried to do something and got slapped down by the party for doing so.
I can no longer assume that the GOP is in general aliened with my values or will support my best interests.
I will judge them one by one.
We are not now and never have been loya to a party. We are loyal to America.
Lee’s biggest vulnerability (and everything else is but an ephemeral shadow by comparison) was the Confederate government.
Much like our forces in Vietnam.
Problem with that is Trump leads by double digits in almost every Southern State that votes early. South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee.
Texas is Cruz’s, no doubt.
The only problem with that theory is that Cruz just isn’t going to be able to change that many minds. He has a small strong support base but the majority of the GOP voting base is middle of the road or slightly right of center so Trump’s a better fit for them.
Cruz might take Iowa but I would not put money on it.
Personally I would really like to see Cruz as VP or AG.
Coming next is a 12-step program for admission of powerlessness over Trump. Take it one day at a time, folks.
You got it, Girl!
Yeah I would bet the farm on that number if I were you.
Just every f'in minute of every f'in day. The press doesn't need to take the gloves off because they never put them on in the first place. Problem is, you punch, and he hits back with a 2x4 right between the eyes.
Go after him . . . for what? Donald Trump has been around and under the magnifying glass before perhaps half were even born here on FR. It’s all out there. He’s run a multi-billion dollar corporation ...successfully. If he’s done anything lewd or immoral, it would have come out by now.
Donald may be the cleanest candidate we’ve seen in a long time. The worst thing he’s done is made his billions and supported NYC with his taxes for decades now.
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