I know that the Trump presidency would be a nightmare, and I think there is something to the argument that just the Trump presidential campaign is causing harm to the political culture by bringing all kinds of racist and sexist ideas that were once out of bounds into the mainstream.
But if you can put that stuff aside, Trump is really developing into my dream Republican candidate. Not only does he have sky high negative approval ratings (thus neutralizing one of the weaknesses of Hillary Clinton as a candidate, the fact that she has relatively high negative ratings), those negative ratings get worse when you look at critical sections of the electorate like women and Hispanics. His candidacy is doing untold damage to the Republican brand that will probably pay all kinds of dividends on down-ballot races.
Plus, it is utterly fascinating to watch someone make mincemeat of Republican orthodoxy, and to see just how comfortable Republican primary voters are with candidate who is incapable of coherently talking about most real policy issues. There's nothing remarkable about a bad candidate. What is remarkable is for a candidate to be this straightforwardly bad and yet to have so many people jump on his bandwagon.
Yeah okay, if Trump actually wins that will be legitimately scary. But if you can shove that horror show out of your head, you have to admit this is really interesting.
But if you can put that stuff aside, Trump is really developing into my dream Republican candidate. Not only does he have sky high negative approval ratings (thus neutralizing one of the weaknesses of Hillary Clinton as a candidate, the fact that she has relatively high negative ratings), those negative ratings get worse when you look at critical sections of the electorate like women and Hispanics. His candidacy is doing untold damage to the Republican brand that will probably pay all kinds of dividends on down-ballot races.
Plus, it is utterly fascinating to watch someone make mincemeat of Republican orthodoxy, and to see just how comfortable Republican primary voters are with candidate who is incapable of coherently talking about most real policy issues. There's nothing remarkable about a bad candidate. What is remarkable is for a candidate to be this straightforwardly bad and yet to have so many people jump on his bandwagon.
Yeah okay, if Trump actually wins that will be legitimately scary. But if you can shove that horror show out of your head, you have to admit this is really interesting.
