Donald Trump has 41% of Republican voters on his side. My mind is reeling from the possibility that Donald Trump has a real chance of being the Republican candidate for president of the United States. That means that Donald Trump just might be the next person to occupy the Oval Office. Yes. This guy:
I don’t need anyone to explain to me how this happened. I already have a low enough opinion of average Americans to account for this level of ignorance. But I do want to point out just how very ugly our political process has become. On both sides of the aisle, angry idiots rule the roost. We can’t criticize Democrats for pandering to low-information parasites when we’re on the verge of tapping Donald Trump as our presidential candidate.
No, it is clear that Republicans and Democrats both have a low-information voter problem. Perhaps you are one of the Trumpsters, and you actually need me to inform you why Donald Trump is a terrible candidate for president. Since it is clear that skull crust makes up more of your cranial mass than brain matter, I have no real hope that this will help at all. But, for the sake of posterity, let me give you three reasons why the GOP should exile Trump to one of his over-priced hotel rooms until the end of the election cycle:
1) Donald Trump has no realistic policy initiatives. Trump actually has no idea what to actually do about anything. His asinine “solutions” (e.g., the wall that Mexico will pay for, banning and/or tracking Muslim Americans) are absolutely untenable. Unless he takes over as a dictator, there’s no way he can get any of these things done. If he does take over as a dictator, God help us all. He exudes confidence on everything, which is enough to sell real estate. It’s not enough to be president.
2) Donald Trump is a vain, egotistical jerk. Seriously. This guy has made a living off of being a jerk. There’s probably never been a more self-obsessed person in the history of politics. This guy makes Bill Clinton and Barack Obama seem positively meek. And that’s a bad thing for international politics, economics, etc.
Low-information voters have the mistaken notion that the US should be throwing her weight around in the world and getting things done. But there’s a reason we’re tip-toeing around Russia, China, and the Middle East, to name a few. In actuality, we’re very close to a serious international disaster if we’re not careful. The dollar is one phone call from China away from a complete collapse. Russia has more clout with the EU than we do. Our military is stretched thinner than ever, and our military’s morale is the lowest it’s ever been.
Going around puffing out our chests and rattling our sabers, which is the exact tactic Trump recommends, might seem like a good international posture if we were actually in a position of strength internationally. But we’re not. If anyone, and I mean anyone, calls Trump’s bluff (and they probably will), we’ll have no choice but to fold. Or, if Trump is president, he’ll probably double down on the bluff until they kick us off the table.
3) Donald Trump will lose. Though there may exist some GOP voters who are very enthusiastic about Trump’s candidacy, around 60% of GOP voters are not. And it looks worse than it is, in actuality. In previous election cycles, there was some indication that GOP voters would rally around their Republican candidate, even if that candidate wasn’t their first choice. But this election cycle is significantly different.
According to Gallup, 47% of Americans vote Democrat or lean Democrat. 41% of Americans vote Republican or lean Republican. So here’s what will probably happen if Donald Trump is selected as the GOP candidate. If Trump is the GOP candidate, the 47% of American voters who lean Democrat will almost without exception vote for the Democrat candidate, no matter who he or she is.
But I’m thoroughly convinced that many GOP voters will not vote for Donald Trump, no matter the stakes. Some of them might very well vote Democrat just to spite the GOP. The Republicans will likely only get between 60–70% of Republican leaning voters. Which means that the Democrats will win again.
All told, the low-information, fear-driven, short-sighted GOsheeP need to get their Fox News proto-ganglia out of their McRib-fattened posteriors and pick almost literally anyone else in 2016. Because if they don’t, America loses—whether or not Trump does.