The Truth Doesn’t Matter Anymore #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain

Super Tuesday is over. Donald Trump has won 7 states. He now has 23% of the delegates needed to secure the GOP Presidential Nomination.

For the past week, there have been numerous articles published hinting at the notion of most GOP party leaders in revolt against the front runner. Marco Rubio has completely transformed his message on the stump over the past week & started hurling insults against the front runner, talking about his wet pants and small hands. How did the Grand Old Party (GOP) of Lincoln and Reagan get to this point?

Donald Trump is and has been the official front runner over the last 7 months. Everyone from the GOP establishment to the 17 other candidates (yes, there were 18 once upon a time!) running for office never took him seriously up until last month when voting began and now everyone is frantically running around trying to stop his inevitability. The reason for the title of this article lies in the allure of Donald Trump.

To understand the allure of a real estate “developer” in politics, studying the demographics of his supporters always helps. Exit polls from all states show that majority of people supporting the front runner tend to be white males, that are older, poorer (<40K USD/year)and less educated (didn’t attend college) than the average American Republican voter. The current front runner has tapped into their anger, discrimination against non-whites, racism and frustration. How? By telling them EXACTLY what they want to hear regardless of the facts. Some things that Donald Trump has said over the last 9 months include “I want to punch that reporter in the face.” “Ban all Muslims from entering this country.” “I could shoot someone and not lose voters.” It’s unfortunate and sad but to each one of those lines, thousands of Americans cheered for him at his rallies.

The truth doesn’t matter anymore in this election because Donald Trump has realized the support of a group of people across the U.S. that harmonize with his thoughts and take his word as gospel. All of Trump’s rivals fought with him on policy and tried to take his support away by pressing him on the truth. Unfortunately, that debate angle hasn’t worked and will no longer work. We saw Marco Rubio get on Trump’s level at the last debate and that seems to have given Rubio more press coverage but it was a little too late to have any damaging impact on Super Tuesday results.

Truth be told, I was going to publish majority of this article about a month ago after the 1st couple GOP state results came in. I too had a desperate tiny sliver of hope that Donald Trump was just a flash in the pan and he would follow the trajectory of a Santorum, Huckabee, Gingrich or Carson and fade away. Alas, such wishful thinking.

If the truth and policy driven discussions can’t beat the current GOP front runner, what can? I believe that only a head to head competition with 1 of his rivals can stop him at this point. As long as the #NeverTrump vote is splintered across 4 other people (Cruz, Rubio, Kasich & Carson), Donald Trump will win the GOP nomination. (I cringe ever so slightly as I write these words) The silver lining after analyzing all the Super Tuesday results (yes, there is still a bleak light at the end of the tunnel) and the few states before is that, on average, Donald Trump has an average ceiling of 35% of any state. Will the party coalesce around an alternative in time and garner the alternate 65% vote?

There are only 2 viable candidates left in the race that can form that Trump alternative. Rubio & Cruz. Cruz is loathed as much, if not more, as Trump is by the GOP elite. Marco Rubio is the only GOP establishment backed candidate but is trailing by a lot at this point.

March 15th is everything for Rubio & the GOP establishment. Florida, his home state, votes on that day and if he can’t win on the 15th, he’ll probably be pressured into dropping out leaving Cruz to go mano a mono against Trump which isn’t really desirable by the GOP elite either. Look out for billionaires buying ads and devouring Florida and other parts of the US with pro-Rubio ads in the next 2 weeks.

If all else fails, the GOP establishment could hope and pray for a minute possibility of a brokered GOP convention if Trump doesn’t succeed in obtaining the minimum number of delegates required. While it’s talked about every election cycle, one hasn’t happened since 1948!

Regardless of the outcome, let’s all agree to #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain (Thank You, Jon Oliver)