It will go nowhere. Donald Trump IS already an independent candidate. That is his appeal.
You nailed it, post #4. Trump has the Reagan coalition locked up. Any Independent or 3rd party candidate will get even less votes than Hillary.
Absolutely true. Trump IS the Independent candidate. Both he and Sanders, from very different areas on the political spectrum, and with very large natural constituencies, have reached over and pulled the veil of pretense off the one true Establishment candidate, the NeoLib NeoCon, the ultimate political whore, Hillary Clinton. This is really unprecedented, in my lifetime at least, and it constitutes the most interesting ongoing configuration of our politics I’ve seen yet.