Trump Wins Majorities

Trump's Ceiling has gone up.   A confident Trump insults Hillary.

Trump detractors and skeptics have been saying for months that Trump has a low "ceiling", meaning he is a minority candidate who can get a plurality of 30%--then 40%--but never an actual majority.

Trump just won big majorities, making him a fully legitimate nominee.

Meanwhile, he de-legitimizes everyone else.

Trump followed up his win in New York State with decisive majority wins in five states last night.   And today's news describes Pennsylvania's unbound delegates supporting Trump  on the first ballot.   Unbound delegates for Trump?   Isn't that a game changer?    Yes it is.

As you see in the Guest Report Post uploaded earlier today, being a caucus goer is a lot of work, and being elected to the next level up (Legislative District, in the State of Washington) is even more work and time and frustration.   To be a delegate at the national convention is not just a fun little prize.  People get elected within a caucus system or a delegate selection system by going to lots of meetings.   These are party loyalist people, the folks you will see down at Party Headquarters every day answering phones and telling people where to get lawn signs.   They staff the booth at county fairs.   They supported Romney, and before him McCain, and before him Bush, and before him Dole. 

It is natural that they support Cruz or Kasich.  Kasich exemplifies the GOP orthodoxy and Cruz purifies it and says he strengthens it, while Trump remakes it.   So what would those unbound delegates see in Trump?   They see a winner, in part because he has made everyone else a loser.

It is not simply that he did, in fact, win in Pennsylvania with an actual majority, although winning with a majority conveys enormous legitimacy.   It is also the fact that they can imagine Trump in triumph in the general election.  Caucus goers up through national convention delegates are united by being Republicans, and these activists are energized by hating Hillary Clinton.   They know the enemy: she is a dishonest, sold-out, ultra-liberal, socialist, military-hating, Benghazi-lying, email-cheating, rape-enabling, baby-killing Democrat.     I talked to GOP activists in 5 states and the one thing they have in common is a conviction that Hillary is evil.

Trump has been mocking and belittling Republicans as he kills them off one by one, showing them not simply to be incorrect but illegitimate.  Canadian Cruz.  Lyin' Cruz, 1 for 36 Kaisich, Little Marco, Too-ugly-to-elect-Fiorina, Low Energy Bush.  Note that he isn't contesting them on the merit of their argument but rather their essential unworthiness to be in the ring with him.   Now he is delegitimizing the caucus system in the GOP: "It's rigged!"  He is delegitimizing his two remaining opponents:  "They're colluding!"

I predict Trump will bring to his side more than enough uncommitted delegates because those Hillary-hating delegates will imagine the general election victory as they savor the thought of Trump's new victim, Hillary.

Trump is very, very good at delegitimization.  He attacks people in a vulnerable spot that blunts their weapon of counter-attack.   When Trump manages to brand Cruz as "Lyin' Cruz" he brings into question whatever Cruz might say in response .  Who can believe someone named "Lyin'"?    

Trump has focused on Hillary's delegitimizing her:  

  ***Maybe she won't even be the candidate, he keeps suggesting, because she will be under indictment.

  ***Whatever she says about policy can be dismissed because she has sold out to PACs and Wall Street buddies, just like Bernie says, and is just their mouthpiece.

   ***Last night, in his victory speech, twice he suggest she won't even be his only opponent because Bernie could and should run as an independent. 
  ***He said Hillary's use of a bathroom was "disgusting", i.e. something objectionable even to consider.

  ***Last night in his victory speech and again on the morning shows this morning Trump said that her comments on equal pay and reproductive rights were phony as policy positions and can because it was simply Hillary "playing the woman card left and right. . . . and she will be called on it.  Absolutely."

  ***And last night and this morning Trump complains about the need to "recover" from listening to Hillary's speeches since they are unlistenable because of her shouting.

His complaint about Hillary's shouting has traction.  Trump doesn't shout.  He has a microphone so he talks.  He sneers.  He makes faces and gestures.    Only in the final minute of a 40 minute talk does he rise to a shout when he finishes with a promise to win, win, and win some more, win until you are sick and tired of winning so much. 
   

Hillary attempts to convey passion by shouting, beginning with her first sentences.  She sounds like the traditional old-style politician speaking with righteous anger with un-amplified voice to a crowd of 500, except of course she has a microphone into which she shouts.  Her voice is hoarse because of it.    By calling attention to it Trump is de-legitimizing her speeches, oh, the pain, who can stand to listen to her, her shouting, just another woman shouting?

Shouting in Portland: the next victim.

Uncommitted GOP delegates are hearing Trump and are considering how delicious it will be to have Trump demean and torture Hillary just the way he tortured the other victims in his path.   Back on April 19 I posited that Trump might have to send thugs to intimidate delegalizes with threats of murder.   I under-estimated Trump.   

He will get his delegates by doing the work himself--the work of demonstrating that he is fully capable of doing sustained torture on his own, publicly, with relish, with words and gestures, demeaning and de-legitimizing Hillary. 

The delegates will like the thought of that.