Perhaps I shouldn’t draw attention to it but twice in this column I may have given the impression that Donald Trump wouldn’t win the Republican nomination. Awkwardly, the prediction markets now say he has an 81 per cent chance of getting it.
My mistake was to think that the party of Abraham Lincoln and of the abolition of slavery would not nominate someone who refused to condemn the white supremacists of the KKK; risked sparking a war with Islam by arguing that Muslims should be banned from entering America; and mocked a disabled journalist for his physical handicap.
I had also erroneously believed that the party of Ronald Reagan would not choose a standard bearer who expressed admiration for the way Vladimir Putin eliminates opponents or who tweets out the wisdom of Mussolini. But, on Super Tuesday, almost everything went perfectly for Mr Trump. He won seven more states and his most credible GOP rival, Marco Rubio, failed to progress despite making jokes about the size of Mr Trump’s penis. Honestly, he did.
The Republican establishment tried to kill Trump’s candidacy by claiming he wasn’t a conventional conservative, but for many millions of Americans the last thing they want is a conventional politician. Just 1 per cent of voters think the politicians and bankers who crashed the economy were properly punished; 84 per cent think the culprits didn’t just get away with the train crash but are still at the centres of power.
They see this election as their opportunity to cleanse Washington of those who oversaw the crash; who encouraged the immigration that has depressed wages; who negotiated free trade deals that have shuttered US factories; and who embarked on foreign wars that inflamed global tensions. If Mr Trump addresses all of this, as he promises, they’ll forgive him his kindergarten manners and TV wrestling show morals.
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“Trump’s position on immigration will attract blue-collar Democrats
If I was sensible I would, at this point, put my crystal ball away and quit the predictions business but there would be no fun in that. If Mr Trump goes on to secure the Republican nomination I still judge the odds are weighted against him winning the presidency. Although Hillary Clinton is a poor candidate with unfavourability ratings almost as unelectably high as his (54 per cent to 58 per cent), the former first lady has three huge advantages.
First, record numbers of Republican voters won’t vote for Trump. Up to a fifth might either stay at home or vote for Clinton or a third candidate. The Republican senator from Nebraska, Ben Sasse, has already insisted he won’t vote for either of the “two fundamentally dishonest New York liberals” set to go head-to-head.
Sasse won’t be alone. Mitt Romney has described Trump’s initial failure to disown the Ku Klux Klan as “disqualifying” and “repugnant”. Rubio has called him a “con artist”. Mr Trump’s positions on immigration and protectionism will certainly attract some blue-collar Democrats in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin but this switcheroo is unlikely to compensate for the evangelical conservatives who won’t endorse Mr Trump’s personal morals or the suburban mums who fear having a hothead in the Oval Office.
Blue-collar Democrats will also hesitate to become Trumpkins once the Democratic machine has unloaded on his tax plan. The writer Matthew Yglesias has highlighted how the bottom 20 per cent get no more than a 2 per cent boost in from the billionaire’s tax plan. The top fifth gain five times as much and the top 0.1 per cent ten times as much (all in percentage terms). Mr Trump’s tax-cuts-for-the-rich haven’t been exposed in the Republican race because the other candidates have equally plutocrat-friendly tax plans.
Mr Trump’s sectarianism towards Muslims, Mexicans and African-Americans will hurt him in the general election in a way that it hasn’t hurt him among the much smaller GOP electorate. While an astonishing 64 per cent of Republicans agree that discrimination against white Americans is as big a problem as discrimination against AfricanAmericans (suggesting they have never walked the streets of most US cities), 55 per cent of all Americans disagree. The 2 per cent of Iowans, 6 per cent of South Carolinians and 10 per cent of New Hampshirites who backed Trump may not have been exercised by Trump’s racial dog-whistling but the 60 per cent of Americans set to vote in November will smell the sulphur.
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Once he has locked up the Republican nomination Mr Trump will shamelessly reposition himself. The tacos, burritos and fajitas will be on him as he dines ostentatiously with Hispanic Americans. He’ll be talking about his deeply held but previously unknown affection for Allah’s teachings. And if Clinton is indicted for her misuse of top secret emails or if some other October surprise strikes, a President Trump cannot be ruled out.
I’m doubling down, however, and still predicting that he’s unlikely to get his now famously small hands on the Oval Office door handle. But, before I end, did I mention that I also predicted that David Cameron wouldn’t win a majority in last year’s election and that Labour wouldn’t choose Jeremy Corbyn as their leader? Anyway, if I’m wrong again, my not-Nostradamus qualities will be the least of your worries. A man who thinks Kim Jong Un deserves credit for dispatching his political opponents will be the most powerful man in the world. Hold on tight.