The great Daniel Heninger explains why Trump is past his sell by date.
Trump: Odd Man Out
The oddest moment in the second GOP debate was when the first thing
Donald Trump did was to launch an assault on Sen.
Rand Paul, who was standing about three miles away at the end of the podiums: āWell, first of all, Rand Paul shouldnāt even be on this stage. Heās number 11, heās got 1% in the polls, and how he got up here, thereās far too many people anyway.ā Ummm, what was that all about?
Since that Sept. 16 debate, as measured by the RealClearPolitics polling average, Mr. Trump has lost about a quarter of his support, down to 23% from 30% on the eve of the debate. In this weekās Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, he is at 21%.
Itās not going to get better. The Trump numbers are going to drift sideways, or fall.
A few weeks ago, Mr. Trump tweeted that getting his business out of Atlantic City before the casinos collapsed was āgreat timing.ā The moment has come for the timing master to recognize itās Atlantic City all over again. For his phenomenal presidential campaign, itās time to go.
In politics, thereās that famous thing known as Big Moāmomentum. Donald Trump had Big Mo like no oneās ever seen. Itās gone. The odds are heāll soon be in second or third place, behind someone he insulted as a loser, as the heartless, mocking media will note. Heās not going to enjoy not being on top.
Politics is about winning at the margin. It is about securing a base of voter support and then finding ways to attract additional voters at the margin. In the highly partisan presidential elections since 2000, the Republican and Democratic nominees both have had a base vote rotating in the mid-40s. Then the candidates have to add marginal votes toward the 50% threshold. (In 2000, with third-party candidate Ralph Nader getting 3%,
George W. Bush and Al Gore both finished with about 48%, hanging chads and a generation of political bitterness.)
The Trump candidacy is pure base, and Mr. Trump has not built out from that base, which topped out at about 30%. Itās become obvious that this third of angry conservative voters is volatile. Mr. Trumpās famous support base has eroded, dispersing to the other outsider candidates, Ben Carson and
Carly Fiorina.
More important, it is now clear that Mr. Trump is personally incapable of doing what is necessary to expand beyond his early burst of support. The tax plan he released this week, admirable as a broad outline, is supposed to show heās getting serious. Thatās the problem. His core base didnāt want
that kind of serious.
Even at the level of performance art, whatās happening now is the slow-motion disintegration of āTrump.ā His candidacy is detouring into weird and confusing fights, such as the āboycottā of Fox News. News reports on the Trump candidacy increasingly note remarks from admirers who essentially say: I really like that he tells it like it is, but Iām not sure heās a good fit for the presidency.
The pace of volatility in contemporary politics is unprecedented, as a 74-year-old Vermont socialist is revealing to the preordained candidacy of
Hillary Clinton. That the improbable Mr. Trump could rise and then flatline in so little time is startling but not surprising. What Mr. Trump ought to recognize is that his place in the 2015 momentāhis political legacyāis secure, unless he lets it evaporate.
Donald Trump was the first person to tap into the zeitgeist of disgust coursing through politics everywhere. The fed-up voters of Guatemala have just made a TV comedian with no political experience the top finisher in their first-round presidential vote. In Spain, a referendum last Sunday revealed many in Catalonia would jump off the political cliff to separate from Madrid, their version of despised Washington.
In the 1996 presidential campaign, the Republican nominee, Sen.
Bob Dole, coined a political phrase for the ages: āWhereās the outrage?ā Thatās the question a lot of Republican voters were asking themselves about their declared presidential candidates earlier this year: Whereās the outrage? With Donald Trumpās June 16 presidential announcement, they finally got it.
Mr. Trumpās singular personality is simply at odds with the political skills necessary to carry that mood any further than his mere arrival accomplished. His support is moving to candidates who are variations on the Trump theme. What people saw and heard in Carly Fiorina was your basic straight-razor woman. Her rage looks to be about one degree below boiling. Ben Carson radiates an intelligent everymanās bemusement at a gridlocked system.
-more at the source.
