To worry about a world where Donald Trump is America's president

[mrshudson221b]

someone please reassure me that he is unlikely to be the Republican nominee, let alone become president.

Cannot believe that anyone would take anything he says seriously or agree with any of his beyond offensive vile opinions. Like having Nick Griffin en route to becoming PM .

And the fake tan. What's going on with that?

Oh, I don't know. It would be ever so entertaining to see how the "special relationship" plays out between Donald and Boris.

Trump will not be president. Even if he gets the nomination (and the Republican establishment are seriously considering blocking him at the convention), he won't win. His negative ratings are through the roof - basically, anyone who doesn't love him absolutely loathes him, including a lots of prominent Republicans who are now saying they will vote for Clinton if Trump gets the nomination.

He is getting more and more firmly tied to the white supremacists (most recently his son, who is central to his campaign, did an interview for a white supremacist radio talk show host who has said that “slavery is the greatest thing that ever happened to” black Americans and that “interracial sex is white genocide”), which will make him absolutely unelectable for the vast majority of Americans who aren't racist twats.

Just as importantly, American presidential elections are all about the swing states. The Democrats have no chance of losing, say, California and the Republicans have no chance of losing Alabama. So it all comes down to a number of swing states. Several of these have very large Hispanic electorates, who don't take a positive view of Trump's talk about Mexicans.

If Trump gets the nomination, Clinton is a safe bet for the presidency and the Republican party is dead. A current Republican senator explains it well here: www.cbsnews.com/videos/super-tuesday-lindsey-graham-republicans-are-handing-election-to-hillary-clinton/

Cynical old me can't help feeling the whole thing is a scam by dark forces to give Hilary a clear in!

Yup I've always thought this!

I just can't see how America's Hispanic and Afro-American populations could allow him to win...

I hear what you say, Father - and you may well be right. But then what would anyone have given for Kennedy's chances before he squeaked through? Politics has a way of mocking us all.

It certainly does, so all this can only ever be best guess. But given the nature of the electoral college system, the demographics of the US electorate, and the huge negative ratings Trump has (even before the Democrats unleash what must surely be a mountain of dirt they have on him), the best guess has to be that Trump will do significantly worse than Romney did in 2012 or McCain did in 2008.

The only path to the presidency I can see for Trump is if a credible third party candidate announces a bid and splits the sane vote that would otherwise have gone to Clinton.

Bloomberg has to decide this week if he's running, otherwise he's too late to get on the ballots...

His hair reminds me of one of those spun sugar creations on master chef.

It doesn't seem actually ''combed'' from anywhere. It just kind of floats near his forehead.

All we know for now is that Hillary R Clinton is rubbing her hands with glee.

Hillary may not be popular but better to choose a bad friend with good intentions than a total loon like Trump. I think most Americans will realise that. GOP voters will abstain.

I wonder what would happen if they had compulsory voting in the US as they do in OZ.

He has levitating hair. You're right Epona.

Does Trump's rise mean that the Koch brothers' control of the Republican party has been weakened?

They're choosing a candidate who appeals to one pretty extreme side of people who are already committed Republicans. He won't attract the floating voters they need to win and will even alienate some previously Republican voters.

I think the exact opposite is true. It is the floating voters he is capturing and committed republicans are having a heart attack at the prospect of a Trump as candidate - mostly because they do not believe is a real conservative. He isn't - I actually don't think he knows what it means actually. What has been happening over the past number of years is that the Republicans in their tasteless pandering to the evangelical christian right wing part of the party, have alienated everyone else, proved they are absolutely out of step with the majority of americans, and created this lacuna into which, god help us, Trump stepped.

Mitt Romney is about to make a speech about the situation this morning, proving again, as if it wasn't clear enough, that the Republican establishment understand absolutely nothing about what is really going on here and seem to think if they keep saying "but what you really want is XYX" the electorate will eventually agree with them and vote as instructed. Poor Romney, a decent if arrogant man, believes in himself so strongly that despite 2 defeats he cannot grasp that he has been rejected.

I can't say I'd look forward to a President Trump and hope that Clinton will win, but frankly, he is better than that evil toad, Cruz or that creeping jesus, Rubio.

We already (barely) survived Bush/Chaney and you survived Blair - Trump can't be that bad.

I think the hair matters because (a) it looks fucking ridiculous, and (b) Trump hasn't noticed that.

So it does make me question his judgement. Well, that and the xenophobic ranting and raving.

I have no idea who he appeals to. How on earth is he pulling such a large Hispanic vote?
I did notice he slightly backed down on his build a wall rhetoric earlier this week saying that they might not need to build a wall because Mexico would willingly keep people in or something (hugely paraphrasing) but that if a wall did need to be built then Mexico would happily pay for it.
I'm hugely perturbed with how they deal with demonstrators at his rallies incited by Trump.

It is the floating voters he is capturing

How do you get that from party primaries and the polls, canyou? This is the most recent national poll: edition.cnn.com/2016/03/01/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-poll/

Father I didn't mean floating voters in the actual election (I agree that Clinton would face a bigger challenge from Cruz - and I would have to dust off the Irish passport again for sure if HE won). I meant more that Trump is gaining support from people who may not have bothered voting in the primary in the past - non liberals who aren't ever going to be democrat voters but who aren't republican mainstream. He is getting the disaffected with politics as usual in the republican party - just as Sanders is getting the disaffected with the usual stuff in the democratic party.

This election isn't our finest moment certainly, but I don't think he is the worst thing that could happen.

Yes, that makes sense. Don't see how it would have an effect on the actual election though, it will just do what's happened in congressional elections: turn some bits of some red states a lot redder. And as he moves ever more openly to a white supremacist platform, he's going to lose a hell of a lot more than he picks up. There was talk a few months ago that a Trump nomination could cost the Republicans Texas because the hispanic electorate there is now so big - I doubt it, but it would be an amazing sight.

I tend to agree with father. I think the GOP has suddenly woken up to the fact that the amusing little puppy that's been playing in their living room is actually a rabid pit bull. I think their original philosophy was that Trump would gather the neo-cons and conservative fringe away from the Tea Party and back to the GOP during the early campaign period. Then they'd be able to do a 'bait and switch' to a more 'acceptable' candidate when Trump failed to make the numbers. They just didn't count on Trump's over the top personality and his ability to manipulate the 'disaffected masses'. Now the GOP 'powers that be' are scrambling to cut Trump off at the knees. Not sure what's going to happen.

1-Trump gets the nomination, the GOP refuses to back him or backs him minimally thereby undermining his campaign. This theoretically could make it easier for the Dem candidate to win the election.

2-The GOP finds a way to block Trump's nom. Trump huffs off, goes independent (and this is not without precedent) and takes his 'fans' with him. This splits the GOP vote, the Dem candidate wins.

3-The GOP backs Trump to the hilt in return for financial favours. Trump wins. I move to Canada or the UK.

In both body language and attitude Trump reminds me of Dr Evil from Austin Powers. Is it just me?

chip part of me has a tin foil hat feeling about it all too. Curiouser and curiouser.

*1-Trump gets the nomination, the GOP refuses to back him or backs him minimally thereby undermining his campaign. This theoretically could make it easier for the Dem candidate to win the election.

2-The GOP finds a way to block Trump's nom. Trump huffs off, goes independent (and this is not without precedent) and takes his 'fans' with him. This splits the GOP vote, the Dem candidate wins.

3-The GOP backs Trump to the hilt in return for financial favours. Trump wins. I move to Canada or the UK.

All is not lost...

2-The GOP finds a way to block Trump's nom.

That's obviously where some of them are going (did you see Tom DeLay talking after tuesday's results?), but they would have to be worried about the consequences, and not just the electoral consequences - Trump's base are angry, paranoid, and armed.

.......But not too organised. So far.

I don't agree with Boris Johnson at all on the EU, but the man studied Classics at Oxford. There's a hinterland there, a feel for history and complexity. He knows things aren't black and white.

He isn't the same as Putin and Trump.