Rubio's out. Can the Republican party survive Trump's nomination?

If he doesn’t get 1237 and they try to stick someone else in it is going to be a shit-parade. I expect deaths in Cleveland if that happens.

And if that happens he goes third party since he is a fucking child and will destroy the toy before anyone else can have it.

I have a feeling Trump supporters are kinda like Apple fans. Really loud and obnoxious and it seems like there is more of them than there actually are.

@johnpowell
Could not have said that better myself

@johnpowell, as a longtime Apple fan (though no longer a rabid one), I kind of resent being compared to a man-child whom I absolutely detest.

But I totally agree with your analysis.

@Pachy :: I am typing this on a Mac Pro while my iPhone and iPad charges and 3 Apple TVs are spread across my apartment.

The main thing that Dems have to do is get out and vote. Encourage your friends to vote. Make sure everyone you know is registered to vote.

I know a lot of people feel they don’t want to vote for whatever reason, but in this year, with so much at stake (one example, the Supreme Court, where if the wrong judge gets in, kiss abortion bye bye), it’s “us vs. them.” If you don’t want it to be “them,” then you need to vote.

Many Republicans don’t like Trump but what else is there? Cruz? Kasich might be a decent choice but he’s way down in the delegate count so it’s very likely going to be Trump or Cruz.

Honestly, as much as I consider Trump a waste of a human being, IMO he’s preferable to Cruz, who is evil personified.

@syz :: I agree. I think Cruz is a fucking nutter. I would pick Trump over Cruz.

I read an article yesterday (will link later if you guys want), where Trump was happy with a local ordinance where beggars had to obtain a permit to beg.

He’d be their democratically elected candidate, suck it up or piss off.
I mean, Trump will win, the party knows it, Hellary knows it & an angry electorate knows it.

I detest Trump, but if he comes close to a majority and is not given the nomination, he and his supporters would have good reason to be outraged. I don’t think the Republicans would do that. It looks like it is going to be Trump and Clinton. The Republican party will survive, but it may be transformed.

I too would take Trump over Cruz. @jca If Trump isn’t incentive enough to drive democrats to the polls, nothing is. I think one of the great fears of the Repubs is the very possibility of record turnout on the Democratic side.

The Republicans are reporting 14 million new Republican voters. If true, yes. If true, they will get the presidency. If true, the new Republican party will be something very ugly, something far different than their Reagan myth, and something far, far, far different than the party of Eisenhower—a noble opposition.

@Espiritus_Corvus :: I think the big question if this turns into Trump vs Clinton is will people turn out to vote against Trump. With Obama you had people really excited to vote for him and I doubt Hillary will see the same level of passion. I’m not excited for Hillary. But I will vote since the alternative is American Horror Story.

I really don’t like Hillary, I would vote for a dried up dog turd before I would vote for her.
^^ This was me six months ago. Faced with a Hillary-Trump race even a right wig asshole like myself will throw my vote her way. jesus, I can’t believe I’m actually saying this

@johnpowell Yes. But for those who are predicting doom, they need to remember there is a lot left to this race.

The interesting “transformation” of the GOP will be that perhaps the Fundamentalist wing will have finally lost sway in the party. Sure, the White Supremacist wing will finally be out of the closet and vocal, but the “values” wing, prevalent since Pat Buchanan’s Culture War speech in 1992, will finally crawl away.

This year has been the outcome of years of bombast that started with Buchanan and was nurtured by Newt Gingrich over 20 years ago.

YES, @ARE_you_kidding_me, I can’t believe we’re actually saying saying that.

I voted UnTrump in the the Illinois primary, and it sure the hell wasn’t for that evil nut Cruz, @syz.

Barring a brokered convention during which the party decides to say “fuck the primary voters,” Trump will be the nominee. But I don't see how he wins the general election without something seriously weird happening. Trump has Carter-level unfavorability numbers, and those are likely to go up after the vetting that comes with a nomination. Clinton, meanwhile, has already alienated everyone she can. She's a known quantity who most people made up their mind about a long time ago. Her unfavorability numbers can only come down (but they won’t—she’ll make friends with some undecideds during the campaign, but she’s not going to be making any conversions).

Plus she has an advantage that numbers don’t reveal: voters like the Clintons way more than they are willing to admit. Every time one of them is on the ballot, the opinion polls and exit results always show that more people are willing to vote for them than are willing to admit they voted for them. So if we’ve got lifelong Republicans coming out and publicly declaring their willingness to vote for Clinton, think of what that says about the silent majority. We’re going to have a lot of people holding their noses at the ballot this year.

Then there’s the possibility that Sanders ends up the Democratic candidate. His favorability numbers would come down a bit in a general election, too, and his unfavorables would go up. If Clinton is right about one thing, it’s that his current numbers aren’t a great reflection of what the voters will think in November if he's the candidate. The Democratic debates have been buried, with only the occasional highlight reaching the average voter. So while I think Sanders could win over a lot of undecideds, he’s going to alienate a lot of them at the same time. He has some overlapping support with Trump from voters who just want change, however, so that could actually help him out quite a lot if he makes it to the general election.

And that’s not even considering the possibility of a third party run from a Republican other than Trump. If the GOP leaders decide that losing the White House (while potentially holding onto Congress) is better than letting Trump become president while holding their banner, then they might decide to split the electorate on their own. It would be a bold move—and one that could be easily interpreted as noble, thereby winning over moderate support for current down-ticket candidates and for future Republican presidential candidates. I can't see that happening without a brokered convention, though. If Trump gets enough delegates in the primary to win outright, the party will be too scared to challenge him that way.

@JeSuisRickSpringfield Hillary is picking up supporters votes at a pretty steady clip, as Trump progresses toward the Republican nomination.

Both @ARE_you_kidding_me and I are prepared to do the unthinkable and vote Clinton. Given the number of conservatives on Fluther, that’s pretty significant.

@ibstubro Exactly. She’s picking up votes even among people who view her unfavorably. Meanwhile, Trump’s unfavorables have universally translated into people not voting for him or specifically voting against him. Absent a complete and total change of strategy leading up to the general election (which could easily backfire), there’s no way for him to win the White House.

A more pertinent question might be Can America survive Trump’s nomination?

I think sure it can survive. Before Trump the US made gay marriage and gays in the military legal. That was two topics that used to help the right wing dig their heels in and feel united. It also kept Republicans (both the average citizen and politicians) who were more moderate on social issues either annoyed, voting against their conscience, or liars. The Republican Party only adopted the religious right about 40-ish years ago. I think the big test and uniting force centers around health care now. Those who want it more and more centralized and controlled and those who don’t. I’d like for both sides to talk about lowering and controlling the national debt too. That seems to not be in the forefront?

I still feel that Trump’s all but assured candidacy is the most destructive possibility facing the Republican party since the Civil War. Aside from the fact that he remains the greatest gift any democratic contender could receive, he is an absolute nightmare to established lever pullers behind the Republican curtain. All of those millions folks like the Kochs dedicate to plutocratic control of the GOP agenda now spiral around the bowl with Trump’s hand firmly on the flushing lever. These are exciting though perilous times.

My hope is that a viable third party emerges from all this.
One capable of governing in accordance with the wishes and best interests of the majority of the American people.

@JLeslie If health care is indeed the key, the one thing that is all but impossible to deny is that it cannot be allowed to remain the domain of the private sector. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies have recognized this for decades. The key to understanding the failures and shortcomings of Obamacare lie in recognizing that it is in large part a scheme to provide government financed healthcare. The setup is a nightmare and unworkable because the money expended toward those benefits must pass through the hands of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies FIRST before those supposedly insured receive attention. In other words, government money goes to the corporations FIRST, and THEY decide what their cut will be. It is a hopeless and expensive mess because parasites sit between the recipients and their physicians and medicines.

@ibstubro That’s the problem. The current system renders a viable 3rd party nearly impossible. The current 2 have seen to it that we are hostage to the current either or setup. This is why even Trump is running as a Republican & Sanders is slaving for the donkey.

No, the GOP is going to reap what it has sown and wind up with a loud-mouthed oompa-loompa as their official candidate.

The question in my mind is what people will do to the DNC when Hillary gets the nod.There are enough people feeling the Bern that would rather riot than vote for Hillary. I don’t see them just abstaining from voting, which would be a Republican win. They’ll likely do something, but what?

Well, boys and girls, it’s getting a bit late in the game to even try a third party. The election apparatus and even getting a name on the ballot would need to happen very soon to make it. Couple that with the problem that there is no viable third party candidate waiting in the wings and I think that option is all but gone.

Hilary has all but sewn up the DNC with her wins last night so I don’t see much changing on that side. Trump still has a road to getting the majority of delegates but it’s not an easy road. I suspect the GOP will wind up as a contested election with no one having the majority and likely come away with either Cruz or Trump. Kasic could but it seems very unlikely. So if it is Hilary vs Trump we have two candidates that the majority of the country don’t want. I think the last numbers I saw said 56% would never vote for Hilary and 60+% would never vote for Trump. We’ve got a circular firing squad and it will be intersting to see who’s left standing once the dust clears.

I don’t know how all this will work out but one thing is for certain, it will be ugly.

I read somewhere recently some remarks from Jimmy Carter on the Republican lineup. He said something to this effect (paraphrased): “This might surprise you, but I’d rather see Trump get the GOP nomination than Cruz. The reason is that, if elected, Trump doesn’t know anything about the job of president and would have to listen to his advisors, whereas Cruz is totally hardened in his views and wouldn’t listen to anybody.” That certainly made me think.

I don’t like Hillary, and I think she is more of a liar than most politicians, but I also think she’s the only one who can beat Trump. And someone has to.

No matter how this goes, we’re in a watershed moment, much more of one than when we elected a president who crossed racial lines, and neither the R nor the D party will ever be the same. What happened in 2016 is going to be a question on history exams 40 years from now. I hope by then someone knows the answer.

@Jeruba Judging from current trends, I believe it worth considering the likliehood that History will be a relevant topic in the standard curriculum. A powerful case can be made that the current political situation would not be possible in a population with a even a bare bones familiarity with the history of this place.

Great

@stanleybmanly The realities of our healthcare system mean nothing at this moment and time. What matters is what large portions of the citizenry perceive as the healthcare system problems. I just think the topic is a major wedge issue during this election and probably at minimum into the next one.

Abortion is often a wedge issue, and has been for years, but I think even that is a little lower on the totem pole right now, although still a big deal.

@Jeruba Thanks for that information about what Jimmy Carter said. I think he is a great man. I feel he has incredible integrity. I know people really question a lot of things about his presidency, but I see a tremendous amount of good in the man.

Typo: moment in time.

I don’t know what will happen to the GOP from here out, but I’m kinda thinking that the longer this shitshow goes on the more they’re handing this election to the Democrats. The Republican Party clearly doesn’t want Trump, but what do they do if he keeps winning primaries? And part of the problem is that they’ve had too many candidates splitting the vote between them and allowing Trump to run away with it. This might be less of an issue now, with Rubio out, but there’s still Cruz and Kasich splitting the remaining vote. If I were the GOP leadership I think I’d be pushing Kasich to drop out, so that the resources and votes can go to Cruz.

Of course Cruz isn’t exactly an appealing candidate, but does Kasich even have a snowball’s chance in Hell of catching Trump? Cruz does (though I wouldn’t count on him being able to beat Hillary in the general).

As an aside, what, exactly, are the wishes of the majority of the American people? The majority of the American people voted Obama into office twice. Then the majority of the American people voted in a Congress devoted to obstructing everything he does. The majority of the American people vote one way in one election, then vote the opposite way in the next.

Perhaps the problem isn’t that our elected officials don’t govern according to the wishes of the majority of the American people. Perhaps the problem is that the majority of the American people can’t decide what the fuck they want.

@Darth_Algar More to the point, the majority of the American people don’t recognize, or perhaps even care, when they are being led around by the nose. But this is not solely an American problem. It’s the same everywhere. We are living in a time of profound ignorance, even while access to information is at its peak. This is one reason why “free education” is not a stupid idea.

As I think about this more, the party doesn’t want Trump, ok, so that means the won’t back him ($$$) but he doesn’t care about the money so who gives a crap? Will they actually go against the popular vote and try to block him? I just cannot even imagine it. Imagine if a third world country did that? America would be crying corruption and feeling holier than though as a country that prides itself on democracy.

Let’s say they put Cruz in? Trump is garnering huge numbers, he’ll just run as an independent. Will the party spend a bunch of money on Cruz when Trump has such huge numbers? Sounds like a big money risk.

I think now with Rubio out, the next several votes really matter. Does Trump still get 40+% of the vote? If he does then I think he is the Republican candidate whether they like it or not.

No. It would be swallowed by the tea party

@JLeslie The RNC hates Cruz even more than they hate Trump. One idea I’ve heard floated is that they’ll just appoint someone who didn’t even run, like Paul Ryan.

Logically, of course the Republican party can survive a Trump nomination.
How many people can replicate the reality TV star, trash talking, billionaire-average-Joe persona of Donald J. Trump? The yahoos in Congress have already been hunkered down for 8 years of Obama, at worst they hunker down for another 4 years of Trump.

That’s likely why the Republican establishment hates Cruz worse – he’s easily replicated and the Wilks Brothers have billions to spend.
The Koch family are flaming liberals in comparison, even commenting favorably on some of Bernie Sanders’ platform.

@dappled_leaves I can’t see that happening in a million years, but I’ve been wrong before.

@JLeslie John Boehner endorsed Paul Ryan today.

@ibstubro :: “Ben Carson gave a tepid explanation of his decision to endorse Donald Trump on Monday, saying even if Trump turns out not to be such a great president… we’re only looking at four years.

Have you all seen what his supporters share? Here’s one image a female acquaintance of mine shared. There’s no stopping his supporters. They are rabid and ready to kick some ass.

I made a fb account not long ago with a fake pretty blonde profile pic. I joined some redneck groups and military groups and added friends that way. They all love a pretty blonde. It was a social experiment of mine. I wanted to see what they had to say. I’ve seen the ugly, ignorant side of many of his supporters. It’s scary.

@zenvelo Good Gawd.

@johnpowell I assume Carson is vying for Surgeon General? That is a disaster in my opinion. I’d rather him be President, except that as President he can appoint a Surgeon General.

I don’t know about that, @johnpowell. I was reading a story about Trump’s former valet and the valet said that Trump’s youngest son is a chip off the old block.
We may be seeing the beginnings of a (god forbid) Trump political dynasty, too.

@Jaxk I know you said it was unlikely, but it turns out that some Republicans are already planning exactly the sort of thing I suggested they might.

A third party run is unlikely to accomplish anything meaningful. If Teddy Roosevelt couldn’t pull it off I doubt any of the current crop can.

@Darth_Algar I don’t think they’re trying to win. I think they’re trying to make Trump lose. And that’s meaningful enough for me.

@JeSuisRickSpringfield

Be that as it may I just don’t think it’ll work. I don’t think they’ll be able to siphon enough votes away from Trump to accomplish it. No one takes third parties seriously, no matter who’s running. No one has taken a third party seriously since the Republican party came from out of nowhere and put Lincoln in the White House.

@Darth_Algar Considering that we effectively have four parties running in this race though, that may change. I wondered for years when the GOP was going to split. I just didn’t see the Democrats doing the same, let alone in the same election cycle that the GOP melted down. But if a third party ever had a chance, I see it being either now or 2020.