I thought Cruz would do better against Hillary, but I suppose the Republican electorate had other plans.

I am not sure Trump will find a grand rhetorical pivot itself difficult; he achieves a rhetorical pivot often in the course of a single day.

I do wonder if the media will cease being so interested in him. On the one hand, everyone except Fox wants Hillary, and he has benefited a lot from free media. On the other, I think people are getting really tired of this election cycle, besides, perhaps, Trump's supporters. It's not worth stirring up outrage after he says some outrageous thing, anymore. We have learned that it won't affect him like it will affect other candidates.

I know Trump to be a rhetorically sophisticated man. What you're seeing on stage is a show, and it is a very carefully crafted show that he is an expert at delivering. What we saw during the Republican primary was the rhetorical dismantling of 17 politicians who are entirely incapable of acting in character. The good news is is that Hillary is also rhetorically incompetent, but the bad news is that the general electorate is less sympathetic to the character Trump has been putting forward than is the Republican electorate in particular. Thus when I say he's going to need to make a rhetorical pivot, I mean that he's going to have to drastically change roles rather than revise what he's already been doing. I don't know that he has a role he can play which will permit him to gain enough sympathy in the electorate to win.

She is, yes, as is Sanders: you're looking at the High School Valedictorian versus an old man yelling at capitalism. Neither of them are personally compelling people. Trump is fully capable of being a personally compelling person. The reason that people hate Hillary Clinton has very little to do with her platform, since even many Democrats hate her and have hated her since the moment she got around the office of the presidency in the nineties.

You're thinking too much in terms of their platforms, which is both the philosophical habbit and the surface message of most politicians, so I don't blame you. But this is not why people vote for a candidate like Trump, and indeed it's only losely why most people vote for any candidate at all. Trump is a demagogue of a high order, which I have not seen make it this far in politics in my lifetime. The closest sort of character we've had to it is Reagan, but he managed a certain kind of ideological purity as well.

Last edited by iwpoe (5/04/2016 1:48 pm)

Hilary is good at brushing things off, but she's not likeable.  Trump and Bill Clinton are both highly likeable, and they are both good liars as well.

I think Trump is a good enough rhetor that this election will be interesting and unpredictable.  It's just too bad one of these people will end up leading our nation.

I've been skeptical of Trump's ability to win in the general until recently, but there are a few things that give me hope:

1. Hillary inspires nobody on the left.
2. Republican turnout at caucuses and primaries has been enormous.
3. Trump is stealing white working class Dem voters in troves.
4. Trump polls better with blacks than any other Republican in recent memory.

3 is the key, I think. Every Dem Trump steals counts twice as it takes a vote from the other side and adds it to his own, whereas all of the Bernie supporters who stay home or write their guy in instead of voting Hillary are merely "not voting."

I'm not sure what to make of claims from Republicans who say they will never vote for Trump. I have to think their hatred for Hillary will win out once election day comes.