Now that Ted Cruz has dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination for the presidency it would seem to have put to bed the notion that if only a conservative enough candidate could be found he would be a shoe-in for election. If you can’t win the Republican nomination running as the true conservative, it would seem obvious that you can’t win the general election. Who would have been more conservative (whatever that means now) than Ted Cruz? Unfortunately, no candidate is so perfect that the “No True Scotsman” fallacy can’t be applied.
But there’s a pretty simple explanation for it: most Americans aren’t ideological.
I think there’s a kind of Maimonides Ladder of politics. At the lowest level of actualization are those who are completely disengaged from politics. Being motivated by party affiliation or ideology are somewhere in the middle.
Now the prevailing wisdom seems to be that a) Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee; b) the Republican Party is broken; and c) he will go down to ignominious defeat in November. See Howard Fineman’s post at Huffington Post for why (c) might not be true.
I think something entirely different is going on. Non-ideological, inconsistent, and even incoherent Americans are frustrated with the candidates that have emerged from the conventional party structures. What that might portend for November I have absolutely no idea.
Something that might be going on is that we’re witnessing a complete shuffling of both of the present political parties. As I’ve said before I’m completely baffled by what’s been going on in American politics for the last eight or nine months (maybe longer).
Expect Bernie Sanders to be absolutely deluged with demands that he “suspend his campaign”. What in Sen. Sanders’s life to date would lead anyone to believe he would do that? I think that he’s banking on the many known unknowns and maybe even some unknown unknowns that continue to dog Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Who knows? He could be the last man left standing.
It’s not all that baffling. Virtually every safe institution for real Americans turned out to be shit. Every one. It’s like we reduced the crimes of the American government in its CIA-crazy LBJ/Nixon heyday to a daily supplemental level. There’s a reason Christians make a huge fuss about having birth-control plans in the companies they own, but there’s little mention of what it means to be a Christian and have to lay off 25 people. People follow orders because they are terrified and they advocate for freedom as they are told to do so, in general, and then they burrow deeper. And the rich seem as threatened as the poor, amazingly. A hundred years ago, a guy like Michael Bloomberg would be happy not to be the target of a bombing campaign. Now he’s terrified of being called an asshole. Clinton’s already promising to voters in upscale suburbs that she will keep them safe, as if ISIS is going to hit any of these places in the future.
It has been this way for a long time, and it appears that this was the plan of the Christians, Reagan-era fascists, and neoliberals since the 70s. So yeah, not baffling. Trump was just able to equivocate a human reaction in a way that his rivals were forbidden to.
I don’t know whether the true conservative meme is disproved. AFAIK Rush and similar talk radio conservatives always emphasize that people should vote for the most conservative person you think can get elected. (And then they caution that everybody thought Reagan was too conservative to get elected) So, there is a continuum, which I think explains the passing fascination with nice, but unaccomplished, black candidates. Trump is seen as electable by primary voters, more so than Cruz.
To me, Cruz lost on Super Tuesday. If a Southern conservative loses Super Tuesday, they don’t have a good path forward. Here were the percentage of votes on that day:
Trump 34%
Cruz 29%
Rubio 22%
The delegate allocation was still close btw/ Trump and Cruz on Super Tuesday, but Cruz would receive 40% of all the delegates in his campaign on that day. Cruz was only able to use those delegates as an anti-Trump vehicle.
On Super Tuesday there were two Latino freshman Senators from large Southern States crowding each other out. Rubio was seen as the more electable candidate of the two, but he was exposed and a declining star on Super Tuesday. Looking at Alabama exit polls on Super Tuesday, seen as most electable: 38% Trump; 34% Rubio; 18% Cruz; 7% Carson.
It looks to me like early on among Southern Conservatives, a lot of people thought Cruz was not electable. I can only speculate, but I find his speaking cadence annoying.
As far as I can tell there’s been an argument between Republicans who believe in the Buckley Rule (vote for the most rightward viable candidate) and the True Believers. The True Believers have been arguing against the Buckley Rule for years. I think they’ve been refuted.
I think there have been two very different groups of True Believers though, who define themselves as very conservative but have very different ideas about what that means.
For one group it is about small government, fiscal restraint, Constitutional originalism, etc. it’s pretty libertarian, but also adopts a lot of conservative views on social issues- a combination with narrow appeal but strong support among its adherents.
Those who have these views mistakenly thought they had a broader coalition, a very understandable mistake because Southern evangelicals, conservative talk radio, Fox News, and the Tea Party paid lip service to this blend of ideology. It turns out though that a very large group of those voters had only a passing interest in the ideology and have a much different hierarchy of values than the Cruz type of True Believers.
I forgot that was the Buckley Rule. That’s Rush’s longstanding position as well:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/04/27/you_don_t_need_me_to_tell_you_who_to_vote_for
I’ve not listened to Rush very much, but I’ve heard him defend Trump’s position on healthcare reform against criticisms from Cruz and Rush appears to have supported the idea that Trump is a conservative candidate:
“So even though Trump has the largest bloc of voters made up of exactly the kind of outreach the Republican claims it needs to win, they’re rejecting it and don’t want it. Now, they’re characteristic of business involved here, the donor class and their demands. There’s psychology involved in all this, too. But when you boil it down, it is that the Republican Party. Yeah, they want to win, but only one way. They are content to lose if winning means conservatives dominate the party.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/why-rush-limbaugh-is-cheating-on-conservatism-with-donald-trump/424083/
I think part of the dynamic is that Trump is able to say “I changed his mind,” and is perceived as credible. There is a place for the convert.
My comment is in moderation, but my point/question is that it sounds like Rush Limbaugh is not a true believer, and if he isn’t, who speaks for them?
Especially among Southern Protestants. When you’re sola fide it doesn’t much matter what you do as long as you’re sorry later.
Look–Trump accused Ted Cruz’s dad of being involved in the Kennedy assassination and went on to crush the poor bastard. So we aren’t talking about Russell Kirk’s agrarian conservatism and how it has wound its way through America, we’re talking about a country beset by chemtrails, attacked by vaccines, a country where Jesus tries to keep your kids away from obscure porn and Oxy, and everyone grimaces weirdly when you tell a joke.
I passed out bumper stickers for Goldwater, a true conservative. He got creamed. A few years later Nixon got elected and not long after, Reagan. While we may see a realignment, I don’t think it will happen yet. First, on Cruz, he may have been a true conservative, but as a person he was hated. Reagan was likable. If Trump loses they will just say they need a true conservative who is more personable. Rubio with a brain. I think we see at least one more election before the various parts of the GOP decide they can’t work together anymore.
As for the Democrats I think this probably has as much to do with the personalities involved as anything. The Clintons have a lot of supporters but also a lot of people in the party really don’t like them. All of those unfavorables arent coming just from Republicans.
Steve
I am not feeling baffled, I am feeling vindicated.
Every harsh thing I’ve said about the Republican Party and its base has been shown conclusively to be true. They are exactly the people I’ve been saying they were. Their internal inconsistencies are exactly the fault lines I’ve talked about. Don’t believe me? Ask any number of Republican pundits.
The mask is off, Reagan is dead, and we are right back to 1968 and the angry, racist white male voter that supported Nixon. Nixon is the heart of the GOP. Nixon and George Wallace and Joe McCarthy, and nothing has really changed.
“…the angry, racist white male voter that supported Nixon. Nixon is the heart of the GOP. ”
All those union voters supporting Trump have actually been closet Nixonians, and the heart of the GOP. I didn’t know until that comment it was Barzini all along.
Kasich suspends campaign.
Whodathunk that the Republican primary race would be over before the Democratic?
Depends on your definition of “over” 😉
There’s an ungallant joke in there somewhere.
It’s Clinton who is being prepped to play the Nixon role. Not Trump. She’s the partisan veteran who is going to unify the country; she’s the one with the intense inner circle and the manipulated image and the weird pasty middle-American awkwardness.
MM:
I don’t know where you learned your Nixon history, but no. Not even close.
Republican voters had simple choices:
1) Hardcore conservative not instantly repellant: Kasich
2) Even more hardcore conservative, subcategory repellant: Cruz
3) Racist, misogynist, nativist ignoramus: Trump.
Trump by a mile, and that is your Republican voter being exactly what I always said they were. Conservative? No. Racist, misogynist, nativist and deliberately ignorant? Bingo!
And like I said, don’t believe me ’cause I’m a dirty liberal? Then go ask the dean of conservative Republican columnists, George Will. Or Eric Erickson. Or Douthat.
Told you so.
One piece of evidence out of the Indiana primary is that Republicans were also voting for a candidate to fill a vacant Senate seat, and they choose the moderate Republican over the tea-party candidate.
The movement conservative: “Stutzman has been a leading voice in a tea party coalition that insists conservatives need to take a hard-line approach to opposing President Barack Obama’s agenda.” He is also a part of the anti-leadership freedom caucus. Stutzman was endorsed by the Club for Growth, as well as both Cruz and Trump.
Young won with 67% of the vote (655,953), and it would have been impossible for him to get that vote simply with Kasich’s 82,786 and the 27,856 who voted for “other.” He would have needed some portion of both Cruz’s 404,327 voters and Trump’s 587,706 voters, but Stutzman looks like a Cruz guy. I think a reasonable assumption might be that 75% of Trump voters supported Young, and about 25% of Cruz voters supported Young.
My reasoning is that the Cruz voters are more ideological, more likely to say they are very conservative, that Stutzman resembles Cruz in many ways, but Cruz also received NOT-TRUMP voters who may not have voted consistently down-ballot. On the other hand, Trump voters are more moderate, less engaged in politics, and less likely to appreciate endorsements, even from Trump.
I think this is some evidence towards Dave’s view that most Americans are not that ideological.
I’m surprised a criminal investigatio n regarding Clinton’s emails has been allowed to progress to this stage given how politicized Homeland Security and the Justice Department have become. Obama can and would shut it down if he wished to and I wonder if refraining from doing so is a little payback for 2008 and disloyalty after leaving the State Department.
The other thing to notice is that the dropoff from those voting for Presidential candidate to Senate candidate was about 11%. That seems unremarkable to me, but I’m not sure about a good comparison. I found a study that claimed the dropoff rate in intraparty _general_ elections in 2014 for Congressional and legislative races was 11.4% Odd are that Trump voters were most likely to abstain in down ballot races for the simple reason that most voters were Trump supporters, but even if all abstainers were Trump supporters, 78.8% voted for a U.S. Senator.
What that suggests to me is that in the general election, Trump supporters will likely vote for a Republican Senator, unless that Republican Senator attacks Trump. That appears to be Mark Kirk’s assumption.
Well, it seems like the destruction of current GoP is complete. Thank goodness. We’ll have to see what emerges from the ashes – hopefully something coherent and representative of actual American interests.
Personally, I think Trump has a better chance against Hillary than the general consensus. My Reasons:
– There is obviously an anti-establishment wave and Hillary is about as establishment as you can get. So establishment that Neocons and the bete noir Kochs have said she could be preferable for them. Bernie, once you take out superdelagates, is losing to Hillary 55-45. The fact that it’s still that close in May is not an accident. Hillary is already making mistakes – she came out with ads today featuring prominent establishment GoP figures saying bad things about trump. If she really thinks that line of attack will be effective she’s still living in a fantasy world (or, rather, her aides are).
– Hillary’s strength in policy details and wonkery won’t matter much. This will be an election about passion, persuasion and personality – characteristics which favor Trump. It will not be an election about which policy proposal scores better with the CBO or with the think-tank crowd.
– Trump is likely to do better in debates than Hillary. Again, it will mainly be about personality.
– Hillary’s strength – her government experience, is also a weakness not only because her credentials are solidly establishment, but also because she’s been on the wrong side of many important foreign policy issues.
– Hillary doesn’t have a positive message for change, isn’t focused on the issues that will matter most this election. or is on the losing side of those issues. The only real exception is on women’s issues. (I think women overall will be the lynchpin of this election. If Trump is able to attract a sizable number of women voters, Hillary is probably doomed). The top problem this year, based on Gallup polling: The economy, government, immigration, race relations, terrorism, national security, health care in that order. Clinton’s record is vulnerable on the top three.
Of course, this all assumes Trump plays it smart. One stupid remark from his big mouth could end him quickly – general election politics is a lot different from the past six months. Hillary might actually see which way the wind is blowing and successfully bend to exploit it. Hillary’s ground game is likely to be better than Trumps, especially if the GoP apparatus doesn’t help Trump locally.
So, lots of unknowns and it’s still early days.
BTW, is anyone else following Scott Adam’s (of Dilbert fame) blog? He’s got an unusual perspective and thinks Trump is a strong horse.
http://blog.dilbert.com/
And, just to reiterate, this is all analysis not advocacy. I still don’t see any reasonable path that would allow me to vote for either Hillary or Trump.
Scott Adams: “And hugging. Expect to see lots of hugging.” Bwah, hah.
@Andy, I’ve read Adams’ master explainer of why Trump will be President:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/126589300371/clown-genius
I’m not entirely convinced that Adams isn’t using some of the proven persuasion techniques he attributes to Trump on his own readers. But Trump is certainly using techniques that professional pundits don’t recognize or understand.
PD,
Agree completely with your take on Adams.
While the republican primary is probably over — with Trump being their nominee — the democrat primary continues with HRC and Sanders still in contention for being their party’s nominee. Hillary fans, though, can’t seem to digest even the possibility of an actual indictment, or the FBI’s part in at least tarnishing her image more by disgruntled agents “leaking” the conclusion of their criminal investigation findings. Basically, the uncouth, negative baggage Hillary drags behind her is equal or greater than to what dems might have on Trump — perhaps even more.
Most people do not want revolution or anything like revolution. Most people want all the yelling to stop. People who do want a revolution want entirely different things: socialism if you’re with Bernie, and white power authoritarianism if you’re a Republican. Hillary represents 100% of the stability in this race, and despite the media’s breathless fixation on the alleged hordes of angry people, most people want stable.
Who doesn’t want a revolution? Women. You know, 52% of the vote, the people who will not be impressed by the Republican candidates’ misogyny, racism, elementary school insults, incoherent rage and even more incoherent positions.
Trump has an additional problem: he’s running out of act. We’ve all seen his schtick. Audience immunity will build, we will all have been there and done that, ho hum. Because he is a psychopath whose act is built on causing shock and disgust, he’ll inevitably be drawn to ramping it up, escalating, and it won’t work.
The Republican candidate is pure bullshit, and I don’t know how many of you out there are married, but in my experience women have quite a good instinct for masculine bullshit. As I have learned to my cost on, well, let’s just say more than one occasion.
The FBI and ISIS are all that can stop Hillary. The Republican candidate is despised by 70% of women, and even more Latinos and African-Americans. That would be, in order: the majority, the largest minority, and the second largest minority. Toss in Jews, Asians and gays, as well as educated coastal white males, and you have one hell of a voter base. Hillary can hit Trump with a hundred ads featuring nothing but Republican attacks on their own guy, and since she is solidly in the lead and will add to that lead once the Bernie Bros manage to swallow that lump of sexism in their throats, it’s up to him to make up ground.
A nice analysis somewhere (WaPo?) made the point that if HRC carries just the states Democrats have carried in each of the last six elections, plus Florida, she wins. She literally only has to hold Florida, which we’ve already taken in 2008 and 2012, as well as tying in 2000. (Who would you trust your social security to, Hillary or Trump?) In the last six years Latino voter registration in Florida has doubled for Democrats and flatlined for Republicans. Fastest-growing demo in Florida? Non-Cuban Latinos, representing fully half of all population growth in the state.
So, like I said: FBI or ISIS or some bolt-from-the-blue illness.
Michael,
You may have missed the Democratic party membership has shrunk four percentage points over the last eight years despite a growing minority share of the population and is at its historic low. You might as well drape a “Mission Accomplished” banner across the continent with the sort of hubristic talk you’ve been engaging in of late.
Clinton is very weak both as a candidate and a campaigner and won’t get any better, nor will her slogan: “Hillary 2016: You Dislike Him Even More Than Me” be enougjt to guarantee her election.
I continue to be bemused by the cavalier dismissal of Trump. He faced 16 opponents, some of them backed by effectively unlimited resources and the Republican political machine, and annihilated them one by one. Clinton still can’t shake Bernie Sanders.
The FBI, ISIS, the economy, Bill, Obama, and her own stupid campaign. If she keeps running ads like her last Trump will barely need to run any of his own.
Ben:
Oh please Brer Fox, whatever you do, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.
Ben:
RCP and Pollster have it HRC by seven, despite Hillary’s unfavorables and Trump’s dominance in the media. It’s far worse if you look at the state by state.
And look where we are in the narrative flow. The tired old lady and the flavor-of-the-year. Tortoise and Hare. Hillary has no ‘down,’ she’s already there. Been there for a long time. What’s Trump’s approach? Drive up negatives. And how exactly do you drive Hillary’s negatives any higher? Those numbers are baked in by now. In fact, I expect over the next months her unfavorables will drop, and so will his, but she starts out ahead.
Most people are not you, Ben, you want revolution, and you’re a Bernie supporter, perhaps not ready to admit your guy is done. Most people, especially most women, want peace and quiet. Who do you think represents a peaceful, quiet 4 years, Trump or Hillary?
I’m not at all triumphalist, I’ve been warning Democrats not to take this for granted. But the numbers are what they are. PredictIt has Florida 58 to 44, Hillary. Ohio 61 to 44. Virginia 67 to 37. Colorado 68 to 35. Overall 60 to 40. All at a point where Trump looks like a juggernaut and no one has a kind word to say about Hillary.
Bernie is still selling magic beans to suckers, and gosh when some old guy says he’ll buy you a pony, you tend to listen. For a while. And then you realize, oh: no pony. Then you vote for the boring old lady because she won’t blow the world up.
Yes, Michael:
You’re smarter, more politically astute and wiser than I. You know reality and I only know ponies. You can even read minds across IP addresses and tell me all about myself, how Sanders is “my” guy and what I do and do not want to admit. Also, you have the unique privilege of attacking me and my character while I don’t do the same because, hey, what’s there to attack when it comes to you.
Dave, you actually did read my mind.
Ben:
1) Dude, you’ve said you support Bernie. No mind-reading required.
2) When did I ever attack your character? I think you’re a smart guy with his heart in the right place, so why would I attack your character?
Michael,
A couple of points:
It’s May: The head-to-head numbers don’t mean much right now – the historical record of 2nd quarter polling isn’t very good.
Secondly, you insist people don’t want a revolution yet Trump, who isn’t even a Republican, wins the nomination and Bernie, who isn’t even a Democrat, is still going against the party’s chosen one (who wouldn’t have had any opposition were it not for Bernie). About 45% of your party would rather have Bernie than Clinton – that is sign of Clinton’s weakness, not strength.
Third, dissatisfaction with the federal government and how it’s being run continues to be a top-3 issue with the American people. That hurts Democrats who are the party of government.
Fourth, the last eight years saw the genesis of the occupy movement and the tea party movement. It’s not 1968, but it’s not 1988 either. There is a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction in the country and will hurt Clinton more than it will help her.
You might be right that “most people” may want peace and quiet, but there are a non-trivial number who obviously do not, and, by definition, they have more skin in the game for this election.
And then there is the #1 issue which is the economy – it’s not fair, but Presidents and their party are scored on the economy and it will be a challenge for Clinton to credibly claim she can do better.
If Trump plays it smart I think he could beat Clinton handily – but he has a big mouth and sooner or later I wouldn’t be surprised if he stick his foot so far in that he’ll throw away the Presidency. Then we can all rejoice at having, perhaps, the 2nd least popular candidate in history elected President.
I don’t think “revolution” is the right term to use describing peoples’ sentiments during this election cycle. Mostly they seem 1) uneasy, 2) dissatisfied with the direction of the country as well as how it is being run, 3) fearful for their own economical stability and futures, and 4) irritated with how our increasingly politically correct culture is silencing open debate and fair dialogues between one another (especially if you’re considered not ethnically deserving enough to speak openly).
We have also been subdivided into so many good/bad groupings, labeled caustically for even minor missteps of language and/or actions which others eagerly opine as evidence of being racist, xenophobic, misogamist, homophobic, fascist etc. Judgment, intolerance of diverse opinion, slothfulness has replaced work ethic in many instances, intellectual, academic haughtiness is parlayed above those doing manual labor/blue collar, or ordinary jobs. It’s basically become a strange, upside down, walking-on-egg-shells world that people want to either turn off or turn around.
Consequently, candidates like Hillary Clinton are not representative of “peace and calm.” Rather, she is viewed more as a continuation of the political noise people are sick and tired of hearing. Sixteen of the seventeen republican candidates were equally part of the “same old, same old” crowd the public has become increasingly annoyed with and don’t trust. It is the rough-edged Sanders and Trump candidacies, though, that have caught fire, exciting people, and creating emotional stirs that maybe there is something more than standard fare politicians out there.
Furthermore, like Andy already pointed out, these early polls are just that, “early.” They are also interpreted by pundits who have been wrong most of the time. Both Bernie and Donald have gone against the grain of political expectations, driven by people’s interest in them and not the poll numbers. This is not a prediction that either of these “outsiders” will win. But to say that either Sanders or Trump are sure to lose is the kind of bravado that one might want to reconsider until at least after the D and R conventions.
michael,
You’ve called me a Bernie Bro, which means sexist, a purist for whom no woman will ever measure up (meaning sexist), a child, a sucker, and a desirer of violent revolution, which means bolshevik. Let’s not pretend this campaign isn’t personal for you.
Voting for Sanders does not make him “my guy” which implies some personal identification with the man. I don’t see the world the way you do; why you find this intolerable I don’t know. I do know you seem intent on utilizing words and code phrases to stop discussions and opinions you may not like and that isn’t going to happen.
Regarding Clinton’s tendency toward self-sabotage alluded to by Dave: You do not give your opponent a nickname that sounds cool and can be flipped into a net positive with minimal effort. Whoever came up with “Dangerous Donald” should be fired immediately; if it was Clinton then her advisors need to lock her away until November.
Most people want peace, and calm, until it becomes apparent that the price they are paying for that is too steep and then they’re willing to roll the dice. I’m not sure if we are quite at a point where the majority feels that way, but we’re certainly closer than Michael seems to think we are.
To Andy’s pount here:
Third, dissatisfaction with the federal government and how it’s being run continues to be a top-3 issue with the American people. That hurts Democrats who are the party of government
I’m puzzled why no GOP candidate has really focused on this. I suppose in part the establishment candidates fear they lack credibility, but certainly one of the outsiders could have grabbed onto it. In fact, Trump, whose national celebrity came with the catch phrase “You’re fired!” is perfect for this role. I’m pretty close to #NeverTrump but I think that if he had led with the issue of purging the bureaucracy and all that goes along with that, he might have gotten me on board. He’s danxed around it at times, talking about Veterans issues and about the corruption of the system, but what I’m looking for is much bigger than that.
Most people want peace, and calm, until it becomes apparent that the price they are paying for that is too steep and then they’re willing to roll the dice.
That’s actually a good way to sum up the temperament surrounding this election — having too steep of a price to pay for peace and calm.
“I’m puzzled why no GOP candidate has really focused on this.”
Probably because the GoP is a party of big government too, but pick different winners and losers.