Jonathan Chait writes about what it would be like if Donald Trump were to take the Republican nomination. Chait doesn't think that's likely but he thinks it's a bit more possible than it once seemed.
I think it's possible, not probable. I have a line I've used on this blog before and I think I even used it as dialogue in a comic book or two. Someone says to someone else, "Your problem is you think never admitting you're wrong is the same thing as always being right." I've encountered a lot of people in my lifetime who were emotionally and/or strategically incapable of saying, "I stand corrected." It usually gets them in more trouble…but once in a while, they get away with it so they keep trying.
Trump has apparently decided that the secret of his success so far is acting just like Donald Trump…and Donald Trump never apologizes about anything that matters, never says he erred. He just attacks anyone who says he did and there are people out there who admire that swagger and seeming invulnerability. Does anyone really believe he saw thousands and thousands of Muslims cheering the demise of the World Trade Center?
Of course not. Every frame of video shot on 9/11 was carefully preserved for history. I don't know if it's still up but a few years ago, there was a website that archived the complete broadcast footage for that day of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and several New York stations and I downloaded every video on it, just to have it all. I'd go through every one looking for the scene Trump claims he saw on his TV but I'm sure he's already had people doing that, trying to find something he could pass off as what he insists he saw.
It ain't there. It exists on a reel somewhere with the footage Carly Fiorina swears she — and apparently, she alone saw in those Planned Parenthood sting videos. You'd have a better shot at locating a video of The Day the Clown Cried.
Trump's fans don't care. They're conditioned to not believe anything they don't want to believe. They're starting to remind me of the Ross Perot voters who were running around in 1992 not only insisting he would win the presidency but that it would be a clean sweep: He'd win every single state and all 538 electoral votes. This was at a point when there wasn't one poll anywhere showing him within ten points of winning even one of them.
Perot eventually got 19.7 million votes…but just find me anyone today who'll admit they voted for him. You might find one or two who'll say, "I knew he wouldn't win but that was my way of casting a protest vote." But you could probably fit all the ones who'd say "I'm proud of that vote" in a Scion xB and still have room for all the current Lindsey Graham supporters.
And I'm thinking that's how this whole Trump thing will end. He won't get knocked out of the race by the Republican elite hammering him. He won't be beaten by big commercial buys or attack ads. He won't be forced to get out by scandalous revelations or anything of the sort. His supporters will, a group of them at a time, reach their level of embarrassment. Being a Trump voter will increasingly require denial of reality and double-talking when others point out to you that he's triple-talking around every question because he has only vague answers to some and no answers to others. Ask him something substantive and watch Donald Duck.
Even the folks who still deep down think he'd make a great Chief Exec won't want to say that too freely…and they'll start to think he can't win, which is really the only thing most of them liked about him in the first place.
Am I sure this is what's going to happen? No. Of course not because I can be wrong. (See? That's not so hard to say…) So much that's happening in this election is unprecedented. That makes it hard for anyone to look at how our elections have worked in the past and to apply the old rules to the new contest.
But Ben Carson's chances seem to be plummeting because it's becoming awkward to support a guy with so many weird, factually-challenged statements out there. Maybe he's just the first in a series.