Wednesday, August 31, 2016

HERE'S MORE EVIDENCE THAT TRUMP ISN'T CAUSING A REPUBLICAN CRACK-UP

What will happen to the Republican Party after November? Will it be irrevocably split, with Trumpites on one side and old-guard Republicans on the other?

Nope. Alas, the GOP will be just fine:
Republican U.S. senators John McCain and Marco Rubio won their party's nominations on Tuesday to seek re-election in Arizona and Florida in November, as both of the high profile politicians saw off insurgent challengers....

In advancing to the general election, the 80-year-old McCain handily beat ex-state Senator Kelli Ward, 47, a conservative Tea Party activist and a follower of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump....

Rubio ... defeated novice politician Carlos Beruff, a millionaire homebuilder, who embraced Trump.
The primaries weren't really close -- McCain won by 13 points, 52%-39%, while Rubio won a blowout, 72%-18.5%. This follows Paul Ryan's 84%-16% shellacking of his Trumpite primary opponent, Paul Nehlen, a few weeks ago.

What would cause a Republican crack-up? Significant percentages of Trumpites would need to abandon Republicans who haven't embraced Trumpism.

But that isn't happening, for a simple reason: The Trumpite challengers to the old guard aren't Trump.

Trump won the primaries with racism and bellicosity, but his tough-guy threats are plausible to Republicans only because they believe he's a god among businessmen, a man who makes jaw-dropping amounts of money and cuts extraordinarily shrewd deals to get projects built that are always super-successful.

Republicans want to vote for the alpha -- and if you're running against a powerful incumbent and you're not what they think Trump is, you're the beta, and the incumbent, even a "RINO" or "cuck" incumbent, is the alpha. (The businessman who ran against Rubio is worth $150 to $200 million, which may not be a lot less than Trump is actually worth but is much less than gullible Republican voters think he's worth.)

So the Trump revolution is going to fade. Yes, in all likelihood, mainstream Republicans will start using more Trump-like language. But the post-Trump GOP will look pretty much like the pre-Trump GOP.

Unless he wins. Then his horrorshow of a presidency might destroy the party.

2 comments:

Ten Bears said...

"Unless he wins. Then his horrorshow of a presidency might destroy the party."

Sometimes the ends justify the means.

Feud Turgidson said...

It's just like the plot in The Producers: the only thing that could possibly go wrong is if Trump wins.

And it explains all the behavior of the candidate and his campaign and all their choices and moves. First, hire Roger Stone because that says it all, and when he's done enough "it all", at least to where the msm has plastered the e-waves with the gigantic tattoo of Nixon on his back, Stone "resigns" (but really keeps on working for the campaign); then hire a white supremacist skinhead agitator dude as campaign manager, naturally he starts whacking women around, so fire him (but really he keeps on working for the campaign); then hire Putin's rep inside America to replace the racist, naturally all the buried bodies start popping up, so fire him - no, first promote him for a couple of days, THEN fire him (but really he keeps on working for the campaign); then you put forward a female p.r. shill who gives off this total Spokesperson for the Damned vibe, and she works some parallel universe campaign that has only the most passing relevance to the traveling snake-oil grifting combination Oral Roberts / Spinal Tap revival tour show you've been on for the last year ... and you run out time - Who saw that coming?