Thread: This time it really is the end of Trump. Really.

This time it really is the end of Trump. Really.

By E.J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer April 3 at 7:38 PM

It’s time to go back to where we began: not only that Donald Trump will lose the Republican presidential nomination, but also that he could be so weakened by the end of the primaries that his party will not even have to worry about choosing someone else.

I feel your skepticism. Hasn’t Trump so far defied all predictions of his demise? Absolutely. Hasn’t every claim that “now he’s gone too far” been wrong? Of course.

Let’s be honest about journalists: We find a lot of ways of being wrong.

One trap is “presentism,” the idea that whatever is happening now will keep happening. And it is, indeed, easy to project Trump’s impending doom after his most miserable week yet.

He responded rather ineffectually to criticisms from Wisconsin conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes. His campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was charged with battery. Trump reacted by aggressively attacking the credibility of conservative reporter Michelle Fields, the woman Lewandowski is accused of hurting. The front-runner thus fed the perception that he’s a misogynist.

For good measure, Trump flip-flopped on whether women should be legally punished for having an abortion if the procedure were banned, underscoring that he really hasn’t thought very much about the positions he is taking or even what he says from moment to moment.

But the killer news for the man who values winning above everything else is that he has dropped well behind Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) in the polls in Wisconsin, which holds its primary on Tuesday. A loss there, particularly a big one, would greatly complicate Trump’s already difficult path to a delegate majority of 1,237.

You could look at the week as an aberration that Trump, the magician, will somehow surmount. In fact, these episodes tumbling one upon the other ratify what Trump skeptics said all along: that he is utterly unprepared to be a serious candidate, let alone president of the United States; that an endless stream of insults against all who get in his way wears thin over time; that he is winging it and stubbornly refusing to do the homework the enterprise he’s engaged in requires; and that trashing ethnic and religious minorities can win you a fair number of votes but not, thank God, a majority of Americans.

The always instructive Yogi Berra explained the New York Yankees’ loss of the 1960 World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates by saying: “We made too many wrong mistakes.” In the case of Trump, journalists are so worried about their old mistake of underestimating the man’s staying power that they now risk making the wrong mistake of missing his fall.

Why does this matter to anyone except pundits? First, Trump’s troubles threaten to go beyond Wisconsin. He could now lose in other big states that vote next, including Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey and possibly even his home state of New York. If this happens, it will be far easier for the Republican Party bosses (such as they are these days) to deny him the nomination. Trump will come to look less like the rank-and-file Republican favorite and more like a flash in the pan.

Second, Democrats Hillary Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would lose their ideal opponent. From their point of view, Trump’s collapse may come too early. It’s true that if the very right-wing Cruz were the Republican nominee instead of Trump, the Democratic winner — it’s still likely to be Clinton, despite Sanders’s current surge — would be favored.

But an utter Trump implosion might free the Cleveland convention to turn to someone entirely outside the current crop of candidates, someone unsullied by the ugly and vulgar GOP primary campaign. A sinking Trump would have far less power to resist such an outcome. Democrats need to prepare now for the strong possibility that they will not be lucky enough to run against The Donald.

Most importantly, journalists need to remember that ratings and page views are not the same as votes and that Americans may love circuses but ultimately want elections to be more than Barnum & Bailey productions. Trump has entranced the media and ignited a minority of Republican primary voters. He has never, ever won over anything close to a majority of the American electorate. We demean ourselves as a people if we think that Trumpism is the wave of the future.

Journalists and citizens alike should cultivate, not resist, their most honorable instincts. The instinct that Americans would never choose as their president a clownish peddler of racial and religious stereotypes who made everything up as he went along was right from the start.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...cf6_story.html

By E.J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer April 3 at 7:38 PM

A Washington Post opinion writer has a personal opinion about Donald Trump. Wow. Now that's news, isn't it?

No, it isn't news, it's comedy. It's actually comedic to see so many opinion writers and even journalists with more opinions than news covering Donald Trump. Is there room in our political process for comedy? Oh sure there is. It should just never be forgotten who the real clowns are.

And this year, the clowns in the circus of our all so important Presidential election isn't Donald Trump and his Supporters who want to secure our borders to save American lives and jobs, who want to fix our bad trade deals to bring our industry, jobs and money back home, who want to reconfigure out defense alliances to make them more effective and affordable, who want to fix our education and health care systems, take care of military and veterans, and who want a Peace Through Strength and America First economic and foreign policy structure.

No, this year the Clowns of the 2016 Election are the members of the free press who could care less about the important issues behind our $21 trillion in debt, 94 million Americans out of work and ISIS invading America disguised as refugees because they're more interested in who Retweeted an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz, who may have brushed by a reporter at a Trump event, and what someone said to Rosie O'Donnell 20 years ago in a publicity stunt for the View.

Do the clowns sell the newspapers and cable shows? Well, no one goes to the circus to see the clowns. They go to the circus to see the performing artists, from elephant and other animal events, to high-wire, juggling and trampeze artists to name a few. The circus clowns are a cute and important part of the circus, but their mission is filler to entertain the crowd during staging changes between the actual circus events. They are not the show and they are not the reason people buy tickets to see the circus.

So, no, the Media Clowns of 2016 are not selling tickets to the circus. The Main Event is selling the tickets, and we all know who that is, that Main Event is Donald J Trump, who garners the biggest ratings and best I can tell is about the only reason anyone is watching the news or reading the papers this year.

Donald Trump is not only the oxygen of this election, he's the blood, sweat and tears of this election. This man has knocked over 17 Republican candidates off the stage and has done it on his own without any help from the Establishment, without any help from even other Officials he has supported and contributed money to like Nikki Haley, or Prior Candidates like Mitt Romney who Trump endorsed and help raise money for the Romney campaign, without any help from the Media, without any help from anyone, except his Voters.

Donald Trump is in this campaign for one reason, to help us fix our country. For the most part, Trump is using his own money to pay for his primary race with some help from individual small private donations from supporters. He's so far spent around $40 million of his own money, which may not seem like a lot to a billionaire, but considering he built his entire company starting out with a $1 million loan, this $40 million with much more to go is a major major commitment.

Trump has lost his relationship with Macy's and his beloved Miss USA Pageant, because of his decision to stand with Americans against illegal immigration. Other relationships have been compromised in Qatar and Scotland over his decision to stand with Americans against Muslim immigration that might be ISIS infected.

Trump has to wear a bullet-proof vest under his shirts because of death threats and in a sea of protesters who hate him without reason worry if someone got in who wants to assassinate him. He even has Ted Cruz seething on comedy shows revealing that he'd like to run him down in the road.

Without any doubt, Donald Trump is the Main Event of this 2016 Election because he made the American People and the United States the Main Event of this Presidential Race, and our globalist-sucking Media Clowns can't stand it.

At this point it no longer even looks as though Trump's critics are trying to convince anyone but themselves.