Right now, Donald Trump is ahead by 20 points in South Carolina, the next primary. For the Republicans, the vote is February 20. If he dominates this vote, and then wins Super Tuesday on March 1, this race is over.
Some conservative thinkers are getting around to the idea that Trump probably will be the next Republican presidential candidate. It is astonishing how out of touch the elites of the party have been with its base. As Charles Murray describes here, this is in part due to the growing acceptance of inequality and class division in what used to be egalitarian America. See Trump's America
Here Bill Donohue likens Trump supporters to the Reagan Democrats of the 1970s and 80s: Elites Don't Get Trump Donohue is right that the GOP leadership will blow the party up if it tries to block Trump's nomination.
Ironic that a billionaire New Yorker can reach out to working America and the disenfranchised Republican base. The big reason is that Trump actually focuses on issues that matter: the unfairness of current immigration and trade policies, the foreign policy debacles, etc. But FDR, once upon a time, was able to build a broad coalition that dominated American politics for 20 years.
Maybe as Trump's nomination looks inevitable, he'll start to make some serious policy statements. Hard for me to believe that Trump will ever be presidential or will actually govern as a reasonable conservative.
We now have a very important vacancy on the Supreme Court: whom would Trump chose to fill it? Filling positions on the federal bench have enormous long term impact. Obama's lasting legacy will be putting two rock-solid liberals on the SC, who will be there for decades.
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