Let us assume (not a foregone conclusion) that Trump gets the Republican nomination. Can he get a win in November? Scott Adams – Dilbert – thinks so.
As of this writing, 60% of the voting public views Donald Trump unfavorably. In the 2D world, you assume he is doomed in the general election.
But let’s bump up to the third dimension and see how it looks from there.
For starters, we have watched Trump confound most pundits by improving his favorability with Republicans since May. But in so doing, he dug a deeper hole with haters on the left. And winning the general election is a higher level of difficulty than nudging people who were already leaning. Can a Master Persuader get past a 60% unfavorable rating by November?
Regular readers of this blog know that back in August of 2015 I noticed Trump’s skill set at persuasion and predicted his rise. I used the same filter to time the fall of several of his competitors. I mention this for context.
My prediction is that whoever faces off with Trump in the general election will get annihilated. And it will be because of Trump’s talent, not his policies.
I alluded to his talent in the comments to Trumps Of Doom, to much derision. So far in this election season a LOT of people have been underestimating Trump.
For those of you in sales (everyone is in sales) Scott Adams has a Persuasion reading list.
Will Trump be a good President? That is totally unknown. He will be entertaining. It is what he does.
Comments
7 responses to “Can Trump Close the Deal In November?”
This election is down to pure anthropology, not politics, ideology, or even fundamentally making sense. And Trump, like it or not, is the only alpha male in this race. Lump it, you little whining betas.
Even entertaining would be a nice change.
Whether or not he’d be good, I think he’d be better than Bernie or Hillary. Peewee Herman would be better than Bernie or Hillary and I don’t even think he’s entertaining.
I will be holding my nose and voting for hillary if she is not indicted if so biden/warren 2016. If trump keeps hitting bring the jobs back and building the he will be tougher then most think.
Helmut Norpoth, Prof. Poli Sci, Stony Brook, has a statistical model that gives Trump a 97 to 99% chance of winning the Presidency, if he can get the nominal. The model has been highly successful in predicting previous elections.
He probably can win if he’s nominated since he would be running against such a deeply flawed candidate (and person).
Against a normal, sane candidate I wouldn’t think so. But what do I know? Jim Webb seemed an ideal candidate and was laughed out of the party. Martin O’Malley was a younger semi-competent run-of-the-mill Dem Governor who got zero attention. So now it’s a geriatric crook against a geriatric commie – to run against a geriatric con-man.
I’ll be looking down ballot. There’s always Gary Johnson, or maybe the Conservative or Constitution Party will have a candidate I would prefer to waste my vote on.
What I will not be doing is watching a moment of a Clinton-Trump debate. Too embarrassing.
I’m not sure if people underestimated Trump or overestimated the GOP.
Yesterday the guy retweeted Benito Mussolini. I look forward to watching clown show become train wreck.
Jonah Goldberg at National Review believes that Trump is a closet progressive who has sized up conservatives as basically bigoted rednecks and is playing to that belief. He’s wrong about Trump but right in his description of conservatives apparently.
It’s been kind of fun having conservative and quasi-libertarian internet sites like Classical Values, Instapundit, Dailypundit, Reason.com, and even Neoneocon and AmericanDigest available as a source of information and opinion as well as sounding boards for those of us of similar viewpoint.
Not any more. The death knell was written by Edward Snowden’s expose. Any opinion or call to action that threatens the social/government structure can be captured and filed away in a storage facility in Utah or Texas. Any real threat to the consolidation of power by the state can thus be neutralized. It is only the will to use the means available that has been lacking to date.
What the juggernaut of Trump’s campaign is showing us is that the soul of the nation is dead. The left has been going totalitarian for some time. Now the right is careening down the same path.
While Obama was unwilling to use blunt force, a President Trump won’t. And the tools are there for the waiting.