TRUMP TROUBLE

The billionaire businessman attracted more primary votes this year than any Republican candidate in history, the battleground occupied by America’s middle class is where he may have to make inroads if he is to defeat Hillary Clinton in November.

It hasn’t been a great couple of weeks for Donald Trump. Recent polls show him trailing badly to Hillary Clinton — between 5 and 7 points nationally. In state polls, the tale is even uglier; Clinton has double digit leads in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, and a 9-point advantage in Ohio. According to Nate Silver’s first projection for the election in November, Clinton has an 80 percent chance of being elected president.


As bad as this might seem, Trump may be in more political peril than these numbers suggest.

Although considering that Trump has downplayed the importance of analytics and data collection for mobilizing voters, it’s hard to say how much advantage Trump would receive from actually having a full campaign team on the ground.

A third party candidate

Not only is he badly trailing in the polls, but he doesn’t have the resources to easily make up the ground. There are a rather large percentage of voters who are undecided or perhaps considering a third party candidate. How will Trump persuade them when he is being almost completely shut out in ad spending and is facing an opponent with plenty of cash that she can use to attack him? It’s not as if voters don’t know anything about Trump. He has huge name recognition and is deeply unpopular, which means he would need to actually change the minds of voters in order to make up the gap with Clinton. 

Refusing to endorse

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump escalated his war with his own party’s leadership Tuesday by refusing to endorse House Speaker Paul D. Ryan or Sen. John McCain, two of the GOP’s highest-ranking elected officials, in their primary campaigns.


Trump’s comments — an extraordinary breach of political decorum that underscores the party’s deep divisions — came as President Obama delivered his sternest rebuke yet of the celebrity mogul candidate. Obama declared Trump “unfit to serve as president” and “woefully unprepared to do this job,” and he challenged Republican leaders to withdraw their support of their nominee.

Political Disarray 

Troubles in both camps have always accompanied elections, but were forgotten, unless historians resurrected the dead for a closer look. This political disarray is unprecedented. Rifts run deep and seem to run even deeper. Donald Trump is careless and acts un-presidential, not a smooth politician, which appeals to many and disgusts the formal establishment. The fear of Trump’s solo run for office not only disturbs the status quo, but may completely disrupt the American well oiled money machine. 


It’s a lesson progressives should keep in mind as they behold the rise of Donald Trump. An American dictatorship is now a realistic possibility, because 80 years of progressive politics have left us with its vital elements fully contained within our system of government. Since the administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, progressive presidents have been loosening the Constitution’s constraints on executive power, Obama most of all. We could soon find that the only things standing between us and the bubble’s bursting are the forbearance and wisdom of Donald Trump.