You and I are in the same camp, but I don't think you have a grasp of how big the looney bin camp is. It's huge right now...about a quarter of the Republican electorate, probably 50% of the base....for a man who does not deserve that support from those folks.
Time will tell. I expect Trump's support, although broad, is also probably shallow. Trump is all over the place on policy issues. The more he talks the more inconsistent he demonstrates himself to be. That's going to hurt him in the long run. Right now, my fear is that the GOPe will make a martyr out of him, and drive him to a 3rd party run. That guarantees us another 8 years of democRAT communist policy.
Trump's "crazies"? Instead of demeaning and belittling Trump's supporters, you need to ask yourself why he has been so successful vis-a-vis his more politically experienced opponents.
It is not only the Donald's personal charisma and money that have won him "probably 50% of the base." His messages are resonating with the base and others. For the first time we have a high profile individual speaking out against the trail of death and destruction caused by criminal aliens. The 2011 GAO report provided all the data, but no politician, left or right, wanted to touch it. The numbers are enormous. Millions of American citizens have been victims. And most of the criminal aliens are from Mexico.
The free trade Reps continue to press for more trade agreements that take jobs from Americans and are weighted in favor of our trading partners. Wages are declining and we have a massive surplus of labor. Jeff Sessions in his March 2014 article, Becoming the Party of Work: How the GOP can help struggling Americans, and itself.
"According to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, seven in ten voters believe that the Republican party is “out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today.”
When Americans went to the polls in 2012, the following was true: Work-force participation had sunk to its lowest level in 35 years, wages had fallen below 1999 levels, and 47 million Americans were on food stamps. Yet Mitt Romney, the challenger to the incumbent president, lost lower- and middle-income voters by an astonishing margin. Among voters earning $30,000 to $50,000, he trailed by 15 points, and among voters earning under $30,000 he trailed by 28 points.
And what did the GOP’s brilliant consultant class conclude from this resounding defeat? They declared that the GOP must embrace amnesty. The Republican National Committee dutifully issued a report calling for a “comprehensive immigration reform” that would inevitably increase the flow of low-skilled immigration, reducing the wages and living standards of the very voters whose trust the GOP had lost.
Over the past four decades, as factories were shuttered and blue-collar jobs were outsourced or automated, net immigration quadrupled. Yet the corporate-consultant class has pronounced that an insufficient level of immigration is the problem. A more colossal misreading of the political moment has rarely occurred.
Perhaps the most important political development now unfolding in the U.S. is the public’s growing loss of faith in our political and financial elites of both parties. To open the ears of disaffected voters, the GOP must break publicly from the elite immigration consensus of Wall Street and Davos. Republicans have a clear path to building a conservative majority if they free themselves from the corporate consultants and demonstrate to the American public that the GOP is the only party aligned with the core interests, concerns, and beliefs of everyday hardworking citizens.
Trump and to a lesser extent Walker seem to be heeding Sessions' message. The rest of the field led by Bush are tied to the past. They fail to recognize what is happening to the American worker.
I'm not seeing it with that much of the base around here outside of border first people, although I'm also seeing it with the low informed voters within the base a little bit. Those that mistake tough talk for being tough support him. I think Trump's biggest support is from those who hate all politicians, forgetting that anyone who runs for office is a politician.
Most of the tea party I see are supporting Cruz or Walker. Most of the establishment I see are supporting Walker. Most of the religious conservatives I see are supporting Cruz. The libertarian republicans are backing Rand. I know a couple of Fiorina, Carson, and Rubio people. Only one or two Trump people from the base.
Im so glad Cruz doesn’t refer to fellow Republicans as being in a looney bin camp,,
that’s so condescending,,you really do feel superior don’t you?