In 1967, William F. Buckley, Jr., laid down his standard when choosing a candidate in a primary election in an interview with Bill Barry. He said, “I’d be for the most right [conservative], viable candidate who could win.” Who could win! Translation: vote for the most conservative electable candidate. Such advice is like whispering to a group of the delusional in a hurricane, such as the third to a half of the Republican franchise who can’t see beyond Donald Trump (DJT).
Fact is, many haven’t come to grips with the forever truth that DJT isn’t very popular beyond their self-reinforcing cloister. Astoundingly, their detachment from reality extends to the amazing and unexamined assumption that he’s won the general if he wins the primary election. Surely, they think without thinking, the guy must be as loved as he is among them. This is the biggest leap of faith to rival anything required of the Branch Davidians (jump in the wayback machine to 1993 and Waco, Tx.).
The numbers and recent elections do the talking. DJT is a loser, writ large. Moving beyond the debacles of 2018, 2020, and the evaporation of a red wave in 2022, polling largely tracks these election results. Repulsiveness isn’t an attractive trait, and DJT has typecast himself for the last eight years as an ogre to at least half the overall electorate to begin any race that he has a role. Then add a quarter who merely find him distasteful. It’s a deplorable way to begin the general.
Also, let’s not forget that he’s the same guy who led a trash-talking tabloid life that would be excusable in a Brooklyn street urchin but disgusting in a 76-year-old man and ex-president. He can’t, and won’t, shake the habit of demagogic bluster and juvenile insults because there’s an appetite for the schtick among his WWF-style fans in the party.
FiveThirtyEight lays it out. DJT consistently, going back to 2016, has double-digit unfavorables over his favorables (55%-, 40%+ as of April 20). That puts him in Biden territory (53%-, 42%+). He polls no better than the guy who has wrecked the economy, unleashed racial favoritism, greenlighted boys into girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms, made getting to work and heating our homes a near impossibility for many, pushes neo-Marxist indoctrination on our kids, and is a roving international embarrassment. Trump honestly, for the most part, did none of these things but he’s so repulsive that a stroke-addled Democrat (Fetterman) and a mental-fatigued oldster (Biden) campaigning from his basement begin to look better to an electorate outside the walls of the Trump asylum.
And then add the Dems’ huge advantage in money and their immense vote-harvesting machine and the Democrats’ ransacking of our way of life for the past few years will matter less and less. The Democrats continue to deliver an opportunity for a Republican victory on a silver platter but the Republicans turn away to the slop on the floor.
It’s what happens when you let the deranged run your affairs, or determine your party’s nominee. Here’s a bit of advice for the Trump-addled: try having an eye on the general. It’s better to win a general election with a person 90% to your liking than to lose with a 100% clone.
Look for yourself at FiveThirtyEight, https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/
RogerG