Tinyowl, I do hope you are right about the landslide.
I would offer a word of caution about the attendance and enthusiasm at Trump’s rallies. Those numbers have to translate into people going to the polls and filing a vote for him, and having that vote be accurately counted. I’d thought Romney would win in ‘12 due to his “huge rallies” and we were sadly mistaken. Remember the ORCA project? Yeah.
Will this election resemble that of 1968? The vote was close then, and California, Ohio, and Illinois were crucial states. We were a different country then, but some things haven’t changed.
Trump has some of the best minds and best strategists on his side. Between now and Election Day, nothing, not the tiniest thing, can be taken for granted.
The nation’s last primary elections are on June 7. I’ll be voting then, and will try to make careful observations about voter mood and turnout. Primary elections usually draw fewer voters than the general election, but this year might be different. We’ll see.
I’m cautiously optimistic.
I was also wrong about Romney ... and that's the string I still have tied to any negativism.
I can't guarantee my perceptions, or reading of human beings. I make this reading not based on 'reading America' because I'm not even sure I know what that is anymore. I know the country I grew up in, I think I know this one as a sick version of that (by sick I mean - serious flu - not necessarily complete mental derangement.)
I believe that people are born free, knowing they are free self evidently rather than just intellectually, they are proud, creative and driven. That's the origin. To be a human is a joyous thing ... until ... stuff ... family, groups, governments ... wear at that ... and some give it up, because it's not easy to stay pure ... and by pure I don't mean 'good' ... I mean to remain what you were when you were born. But that remains the only unchangeable force.
So I base this on reading individual human beings, and the level of sickness, and whether Trump has begun to allow them to see through that sickness.
Romney was an appeal to a political stance, as was Obama - they appealed to illusions and constructs - and Obama was very successful - because he combined it with the sickness. Trump's is an appeal to what we were born with. He address the individual human spirit, which is before race, before politics, before anyone came to view themselves as a victim.
I was wrong about Romney (not that I liked him, but I thought he would win) because I was wrong about America's intellectual and emotional state. I think all of us who were wrong in that way were wrong simply because .... we're just not as sick as the country.
But Trump - if I'm wrong, then I'm a different species from most of this country. I get that liberals seem like a different species ... but really they are just super super super sick, and beyond cure in most cases.
Here in Maine, unlike MA ... people are generally unassuming, and while they care about their politics, they don't intellectualize it. What I read is that many are engaged in a personal, private conversation with themselves. It is "Trump is totally obnoxious, but he's right ... and ... he's not really a Republican, so I'm not going to talk about it, but I'm starting to think he will help".
If 5% or 7% - one in 20 or 1 in 15 - who wouldn't have done that for a Cruz or a Romney, do that for a Trump ... then it's landslide. Conversely on Hillary's side -> the perfect liberal - Obama - has been an unmitigated train wreck, and everyone knows it, including the liberals. I am surrounded by they Maine version of them -> they really just don't want to talk about it at all. They are never going to say O was a mess, but they know it. And they know Hillary is just a more corrupt if less effective version of O's transformation. They either won't show up, or a very very tiny few of them will actually pull the lever for Trump ... finally having seen that ... liberalism is, and once again has been proven to be ... just another soft version communism.
Trump's whole life says 'you can be great without having to demand things from others, and only you can make that happen, and you don't have to be a saint along the way' ... and everyone originally knows that, because they were born that way. But even for Trump 'great' is not most importantly riches and a big business and hot wives ... it's just being a human being, purely, and doing what humans do, which is try to build good strong things.
IF that's NOT what human's want (and frankly it's not what Republican's stand for anymore - which is great - because when dems consider crossing over in the general, they will not feel like they are voting 'for the Republican') ... but if this country doesn't vote for Trump in a landslide, assuming there are no surprises like Trump turns out to be a closet axe murderer, then I am perfectly happy to accept that I am a different species, not just of a different political or idealogical bent, or in a different emotional/intellectual 'mood' than the country.
The next step for this country is to be London, England with a Hillary election. I think at least enough Americans - it only takes a 5 or 7 percent swing, must sense that a vote against Trump this year is a willing step in that direction. Anyone who either can't see that or sees that and wants it ... you'd have to be crazy ... whether your white or black or hispanic or anyone who values at all what we have in this country.
But I am prepared to be wrong ... it's just that if I am ... what it tells me is not that I'm politically out of tune as in the Romney loss ... but that there is more than one species of man running around on the planet. If that's true, then it's time for a whole different set of actions, because the parasitic species, demographically, is taking over the planet. Ultimately they will ruin themselves when they run out of hosts and begin feeding on each other ... but I don't plan on me or my progeny getting eaten.
That was a bit of a ramble ... but where I'm at with it all. I think we can be optimistic ... but even if wrong, I'm optimistic for a great life because I'd never build my life dependent on the behavior of mobs of men, I just don't think that the ideals that lead to freedom are any longer possible in pure-ish democracies once a majority is of the parasite/coward species ... and that's really a scientific observation rather than a political opinion, which therefore doesn't call for pessimism, but action to preserve what we value.
My point is - even if Hillary wins and true individual and religious freedom is doomed in the context of America protecting it ... America is just a name for a place built on God and freedom. God and freedom will never go away - they can't - they are born into us before we have a choice in the matter (thank God man has no choice in that matter) - but their home may shift, as may their name. Ben F said almost exactly that I believe. If America is no longer God's proxy for freedom ... then I really don't think 'we' have failed (I HATE that word - we - especially in that context) ... I think America will have been overtaken by events - God's will - essentially a pestilence - and, so, good men will create a new home, or just a smaller good home in the context of the larger evil home.
Now I'm really rambling, but we do have to prepare for a country not entirely in our control ... behaving ... not entirely in our control ... so that if and when the poop hits the fan ... our descendants are not whining about some victim status in 300 years because 300 years prior the collective persecuted their ancestors merely for being pure men.
We will always live freely, whether they like it or not ... so I don't really do the optimism or pessimism thing any more.