Here
Are 7 Reasons Why Donald Trump Could Really Win In November
Not
that much stands between America and the Trumpocalypse.
05/03/2016 08:09 pm
Howard Fineman
Global Editorial
Director, The Huffington Post
WASHINGTON — Sen.
Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, lives along so many fault
lines of American politics that he is especially sensitive to Trump
tremors, which he fears could become an earthquake by November.
“I’m concerned,”
he said. “Beating Donald Trump won’t be as easy as it might
look.”
Casey is a pro-life
Roman Catholic with a pro-gun history until recently, in a state that
Democratic consultant James Carville once described as “Pittsburgh
and Philadelphia with Alabama in between.” He is also an old-school
Democrat and a new-school one: He’s pro-union and wary of global
trade; he defends Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare and same-sex
marriage.
The mix works: Casey
won re-election in 2012 — the first Democratic senator in
Pennsylvania to do so in half a century — and ran well ahead of
President Barack Obama that year. So he knows his people.
In Casey’s view,
presumptive (if weakened) Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will do
well in Philadelphia and some of its suburban counties, and probably
on his own home turf of Scranton in the state’s hardscrabble
northeast.
“The problem will
be out west,” he said, where what used to be called Reagan
Democrats live in large numbers in cities and towns that have never
recovered from economic recession and off-shored industrial jobs –
and where resentment of Washington and the coastal establishment is
as much a part of the terrain as coal seams and forests.
“We’ve got to
take Trump seriously,” said Casey.
Indeed you do,
senator.
Here are seven
reasons why Donald Trump could actually become president:
“It’s the
Economy, Stupid.” That’s another famous Carville dictum (from
Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign).
It could sum up
Trump’s chances, too. Start with Casey’s concern about those
towns out “west,” and add not only the well-documented stagnation
of America’s middle class but the possibility of another economic
slowdown.
The rise of Trump
could itself cause market tremors – it may already be doing so –
but that won’t make it any less difficult (if not impossible) for
Hillary Clinton to avoid being cast as the “incumbent” defender
of the Obama economy.
Divided Democrats.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is determined to carry his crusade through to
July’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia and to play the role
that another failed candidate, the late Ted Kennedy, played in 1980
in New York: the star of someone else’s show. Kennedy’s dramatic
farewell stole the moment from a sitting president, Jimmy Carter, and
presaged Carter’s loss to Ronald Reagan.
The dispirited
Kennedy clan rallied, reluctantly, to Carter in the end because they
still had a residual sense of loyalty to the party they had long
dominated. But the Sanders crowd has no such loyalty, and their
leader is not even a member in good standing of the Democratic Party.
What’s more, the power of social media means that his troops can do
what they wish by caucusing among themselves, no matter what Bernie
says.
Republican Weakness.
Some Republicans and conservative commentators, such as The New York
Times’ David Brooks, are warning Republicans that they face a “Joe
McCarthy Moment,” in which they must repudiate Trump or risk the
wrath of history’s judgment. And some Republicans are still vowing
never to back Trump.
But GOP leaders such
as Chairman Reince Priebus are more interested in immediate peace
than their place in history, and amenable characters such as former
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman have said that nominating Trump is no big
deal.
The GOP failed its
last “Joe McCarthy moment.” It was Sen. McCarthy’s own persona,
as displayed on a newfangled thing called broadcast television, that
brought him down — not his fellow Republicans.
Will Sen. Ted Cruz,
who suspended his campaign Tuesday night, urge his evangelical
minions to abandon the GOP this November? Nah. He will pipe down and
hope to pick up the pieces in 2020.
Journalistic
Weakness. It comes in two flavors. One is false equivalence.
Reporters have yet to fully examine Trump’s record, especially the
details of his business dealings and personal life, but soon enough
his story will be yoked with and compared to Clinton’s, which will
make it easier for Trump to slide by in the resulting din.
The second flavor is
the media’s hunger for an audience. The closer Trump gets to the
White House, the more frightening he becomes, the more desperate his
enemies become – the more eyeballs are focused on smartphones and
TV sets.
That means more
billions in “free” media for Trump.
Hillary the
“Incumbent.” As much as Clinton talks about new ideas and a fresh
start, she will be attempting the difficult task of holding the White
House for the same party for a third-straight term. That last
happened in 1988.
More important,
Clinton and her husband represent a force in the Democratic Party
that is a kind of incumbency within an incumbency, and that is a
perilous place to be at a time when voters so despise Washington.
“There are reasons
why a 74-year-old socialist from Brooklyn is doing so well,” said
Tad Devine, Sanders’ media adviser and friend for decades. “The
level of dissatisfaction with the establishment is sky high, and she
is a symbol of it.”
Not surprisingly,
Trump is now claiming Sanders as a sort of ally. Will the senator cry
foul and unleash his fury on Trump? Even if he does, will his
supporters agree?
Trump Turns. The
flip side of having no voting record and no consistent views is that
you can reshape your positions at will to suit the moment. Watch
Trump, the master huckster, play more to the social middle from here
on.
It’s cynical but
cunning, and it could work. The bar for him is so low, the
expectations are so low, that Trump has a lot of freedom to move.
The Numbers.
Shockingly – given his outrageous, race-baiting and even
violence-tinged rhetoric – Trump is not that far behind in the
horse race as the “fall” campaign informally begins.
Nor does the
Electoral College map look that impossible for him. With the possible
exception of Arizona, there are few, if any, red states from 2012
that he would likely lose.
There are also at
least five large blue states in which he could compete, especially
for the votes of those former Reagan Democrats. Those states are
Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and, yes, Pennsylvania.
Together, they
represent more than enough electoral votes to send Trump to the White
House.
Bob Casey will be
working hard to keep his state out of Trump’s column, but there are
no guarantees.
Editor’s note:
Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial
liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has
repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an
entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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