Trump Cannot Win — But Hillary Can Lose

The dynamic in the country (and world) of disenfranchisement and reckless willingness on the part of voters to pull any lever they can get their hands on, even the ones marked ‘Never Ever Pull This Lever’ … is very scary.

But Trump’s campaign is imploding — both through his lack of discipline and competence (which was my intuition about his prospects months ago) … but also now (which I hadn’t expected so fast or at all) the systematic peeling away of political anchors. By which I mean the pieces of the overall political ecosystem he has to have locked down and anchor to, to just get elected, let alone run the country effectively.

The loss — not just loss, the outright and active hostility — of the Republican high-command on national security is devastating:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/us/politics/national-security-gop-donald-trump.html

His supporter base cannot hit the numbers required to pull off an election win anyway, the black/hispanic/women voters is truly, cataclysmically vast. His spread — i.e. the difference in support — between him and Hillary with POC is 84 PERCENT. That’s the SPREAD — 2pc support for Trump to 86 pc for Hillary. ‘Epic’ is a mealy-mouthed comment on that — ‘galactic’ is closer to describing the difference. Spreads in the other categories are getting wider — women are solidifying against him, youth is solid against him, Hispanics are solidifying against (and already vastly against).

And three more things.

1 Those categories who are in the tank for Hillary are active voting categories. I.e. they will go and vote if primed to do so. This is not the case for disenfranchised angry white voters who aren’t part of political culture or network. That’s the whole point — Trump is the ‘voice’ of these angry folks, who feel politics leaves them out. And so whether he is their vote— i.e. will they even bother to vote — is truly untested. I don’t see it happening — a vast turnout for Trump. I see folks shouting at the TV on election night, having not voted, ‘happy’ with a self-fulfilling prophecy of a rigged and ‘elite’ system that leaves them ‘out’. Whereas: POC / Latino (voter registration uptick highest ever!) / youth and to some extent women (esp because female candidate) are uniquely mobilisable this cycle. Trump could be looking at some Biblical smash-down come the vote.

2 The more that Republicans peel away, the more the centre-right-leaning independents can find no solace or relevance in Trumpland, since they see themselves as ‘soft Republicans’, supping from conservatism with a long spoon. If Republicans won’t sup with Trump — long spoon or no — the rump is sheer mania, and while that is effervescent from the inside, it’s horrifying from the outside. Once the extremity of Trump’s ‘base’ is clear to the average soft centre-right voter — and I believe it hasn’t been, they have felt that the media is ‘in the tank’ perhaps, or that Trump is a ‘fixer’ with some wacky folks behind him but a corrective, purgative force — I think they will wheel away.

3 He is getting tired. Actually tired, but also tired of the game. He looks exhausted in interviews, and for the first time admitted he might not win — and is not prepared to change his style in order to win.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/11/reality-star-trump-seems-to-be-facing-reality.html

This premise, psychologically — I am who I am, I’ll win as that or not at all — and the media narrative narrative he has spun up alongside — system rigged! — are hugely corrosive to his own, now finally failing stamina and enthusiasm, and above all to that of his campaign and supporters. “If you aren’t playing to win, why the hell are we with you?” is a narrative that is now live, and will not abate. I cannot see him sustaining enthusiasm for the rest of this campaign. His fatigue and quiet night-time terror of the titanic scale of all this will take a toll. He’s been flying on (leased) Learjets for the last years barking orders at lapdogs and staring at Miss Universe models and shuffling fantasies. Hillary has been flying on military transports for years barking orders at 4-stars and staring down foreign powers and shuffling massive realpolitk calculations.

The real estate dude who gives good Tweet … does NOT have the stones or the muscle for this shit. And the point is: he knows it too. He is smart enough to know that much, and every morning and every night he must be feeling that he is now at the point of actually having to earn (metaphorically, politically) that Purple Heart, and I cannot for a moment see him wanting that.

Add to this: media slowly waking up (Scarborough MSNBC, Stelter CNN, CNBC, WaPo, NYT are all pumping out cautionary tales daily, and following up his statements); poor ground-game (possibly atrocious); incredibly bad numbers in SWING states, and poor ground-game THERE; money coming but ad buys not planned; and much more.

Add to this: THE FACT THAT TRUMP CANNOT HELP HIMSELF AND WE HAVE 90 MORE DAYS OF HIS SELF-IMMOLATING MADNESS. It doesn’t stop just because we are all noticing and the house of cards is shedding the top cards.

And so: Trump cannot win.

But: Hillary CAN lose.

Amazing but true. So my thinking now is, time for fear of Trump is passing. Time of fear for Hillary’s bid is upon is. But why can she lose?

The more I meditate on her candidacy the more I need to bring into play the word mysogyny. I checked my privilege — I am not ‘sexist’ about her or anyone. I don’t block or abuse women.

But I discovered to my horror that I am deeply misogynistic — I am perfectly unaffected that society sets higher standards for women than men AND systematically infers that women ‘don’t’ do certain jobs or can’t be and productively ambitious or Machiavellian. I was ok with the ‘idea’ that McCain could be Prez, even if I thought his ideas were wrong: I didn’t think of him as evil or incapable by definition.

I think making sure Hillary wins is partly about progressives challenging the systematic premise that complex compromised ambitious real women just don’t get to be President. It’s about challenging the basic rules and the depth of feeling that progressives have for actual progress, rather than finishing up past battles. These reflections can be simplified into a conclusion that astonishes me, even though I came to it myself.

After all is said and done, and all I know about Hillary Clinton’s competence, preparedness, will-to-social-progress (even with hawkish mega-streaks and grand calculations and significant mistakes), what remaining doubt do I have she is suitable for the Presidency, and indeed vastly better than not just small-hand-Don, but almost any other recruitable or past-displayed male candidate? The doubt — on reflection — is that she is a woman.

She can lose because we just won’t support her. Because we as a society — including women — are systematically lukewarm about a woman as The Boss. So all I have left to feel and say — to myself, as a deep reproach, and to fellow-travellers and anyone listening in any way as an exhortation — as astonishing as this sounds, and as much as I would have refused to even countenance this as a premise months ago:

Vote for Hillary — no, make her win — because she is a woman. Because deep down you know, when you truly look, the only reason you might let her lose, when everything else is laid out on the table — is because she is a woman.