Donald Trump was so successful in sweeping the nomination because he recognized that the dysfunctional political and economic system had disenfranchised the working class and he was able to harness that anger and resentment. The other Republican nominees wanted to play the role of establishment candidates. Only Trump went all-out anti-establishment from the get-go.
In my opinion, that was the Republican Party's
secret tactic right from the
start, otherwise they risked being seen
again by the "
swing states" as a
boring Rockefeller/Bush establishment political party.
You could say he is the "tip of the spear" - a weapon that his supporters can use to fight back against establishment oppression.
In my opinion again, Trump's "anti-establishment" tactic is designed to motivate a
significant number of people from the usual at least
40% of eligible voters (especially those from the "
swing states") who
consistently seldom bother to vote at any election:
presidency.ucsb.edu/data/turnout.php
to bother to vote this year and vote for him, simply because he's "anti-establishment".
Unfortunately, in a bid to secure the white vote decisively, Trump also went all-out with his bigotry, xenophobia and racism. He also made promises that clearly he has no idea how to keep and the more educated will see easily he has no real plans and no substance to offer. So his support base becomes very narrow with absolutely no margin of error. Basically it is just white men, in particularly white men without a college degree that form his core support. White women were generally evenly divided between Trump and Clinton, though increasing numbers are now either flocking to Clinton or moving to the undecided camp due to the latest scandals as well as Trump's poor debate performance.
In America, you can no longer win elections by securing the vote of the whites and the religious conservatives. Universal suffrage and open borders took care of that.
Another important consideration is that Trump, though positioning himself as a spear against the establishment, actually embodies a lot of establishment evils. Unlike Bernie, he is old school in many ways. His sexism & misogyny for instance. And I don't think he is at all sincere about crafting policies that place working class Americans first. He has sold the public a big lie. So those who think he is going to upset the apple cart and put white Americans first again are going to be sorely disappointed in the off-chance that he gets elected. In fact he will be very much a part of the corrupt establishment that his supporters despise and he is not going to offer any substantive change from the status quo.
My final opinion is that the
political climate in the USA during the
past half-decade has
gradually become
pro-Republican again, judging by the past three:
wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2014
wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012
wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2010
and even the last:
wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2014
caused the Republicans to regain the majority of the Senate.
So I suspect that two weeks from now, the "
swing states" will simply decide that they do
not want a
Democrat President again, and therefore vote for the Republican candidate, even if they
dislike Trump.
