2/1/16
If Donald Trump
does, despite my earlier prediction (TRUMP, THE “REVERSE BRADLEY EFFECT,” AND THE MAN’S UPCOMING LOSS IN IOWA) win tonight in Iowa, you can be assured that
that victory will have resulted from one, or both, of two phenomena.
The first is the “reverse
Bradley effect” to which I referred in the aforementioned post, i.e., people
caucusing for Trump while taking the politically correct route of denying such
an intention to pollsters, campaign workers, or other busybodies who populate
the political landscape.
The second reason that Mr. Trump might win tonight is a more
intriguing, and more effectual, idea that I first broached years ago. I struggled mightily this morning to find the
years ago post on which I pontificated on this idea, but after devoting too
much time to this effort decided that continuing it would fail even the most lenient
cost/benefit analysis. The idea is that
the huge numbers of Americans who don’t vote and who are largely divorced from the
political process have put themselves in that position not because, as the pundits
would have it, they abhor the “extremes” that have taken hold of the two major
parties. There is not a huge but largely
silent majority clamoring for the middle.
Instead, those who don’t vote and who have largely given up on the
political process are largely conservative.
The Republicans might not consider these voters sufficiently
conservative because these voters have not bought in to the latest enthusiasms
emanating from “conservative” think
tanks in Washington, D.C., the types of institutions who piously proclaim the
tenets of genuine conservatism while completely missing the irony of their
doing so from the belly of the proverbial beast. No, these largely absent voters don’t buy
into the latest emanations from the eggheads.
But they are conservative in the sense that they see government growing,
largely at their expense, and see either no results or results that have been
disastrous: high taxes, burdensome regulations, a perpetual state of war, terrorism
on our shores, violence in our streets, a crumbling education system, a
disappearance of jobs that once were the first rung on the ladder to
prosperity, and an insidious, near neo-Fascist, creed of political correctness
that has confiscated and emasculated political discourse. These non-voters don’t yearn and pine for
the mainstream and the center; rather, they see that the mainstream continually
leading them downstream to Lake Perdition and are certain that continuing on
this course will dump them into a dystopic sewer of a new world order in which
they are alternately patronized, derided, marginalized, and presented with ever
growing bills for the privilege. These
people see conventional politicians for the carnival barkers and court jesters
that they largely are. And they see
little difference between the “mainstreams” of the two parties; see today’s
other post, OH HEART BE STILL…WHAT A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR THE GOP.
We are reading and hearing, and the polls seem to be picking
up, a growing number of Iowans intending to caucus tonight who, despite being
lifelong residents of the Hawkeye State,
have never caucused before. Does anyone
believe a Marco Rubio, a Hillary Clinton, a Jeb Bush, or maybe even a Ted
Cruz, has the ability to stir these new caucus participants out of their
lifelong lethargy? No; these new caucus
goers are going to come out for Mr. Trump
on the GOP side (See my 12/26/15 post WHYTRUMP IS SO POPULAR WITH THE MIDDLE CLASS) and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side.
Should Mr. Trump win tonight not because of the reverse Bradley effect but, rather,
because the fed up, disgusted American middle class sees conventional
politicians for the annoyances that they are and mainstream politics as the
voyage to dystopia that it is, this will be a sea change in American politics, with
vastly more far reaching consequences than an unaccompanied reverse Bradley effect. And, of course, the reverse Bradley effect
and the true nature of the disaffected American voter are not mutually
exclusive explanations for a possible Trump victory tonight.
One more thing…
I heard Larry
Kudlow this morning on CNBC say that if Trump wins tonight it might be “game,
set, and match” for the GOP race. C’mon
Larry! It’s far too early to be
declaring this race over even if Mr. Trump wins tonight. Or maybe not if the second reason I cited
above for a Trump victory holds true and transcends Iowa. But this race hasn’t even started and will
have advanced a mere few paces past the starting gate by tomorrow morning.
