Will Trump's Hard Core Dissipate After November 8?
I ignore the public polls. They are useless. I pay attention to the betting sites. They all say Trump will lose.
This is why I ask this: What will happen to Trump's hard-core supporters on November 9?
The Tea Party was a big deal in 2010. It no longer is. It dissipated. It had no hard core.
Jack Kerwick has written an article that says they will not dissipate.
Do the NeverTrumpists seriously believe that Trump's supporters will just return to business as usual in the event that Clinton becomes President? Do they think that the unprecedented number of voters who propelled Trump as far as he's gone will forget their treachery, that they will ever again contribute a dime or a vote toward the Republican Party?
I think most of his supporters will merge back in. If they did not come in from the fringes, they will stick with the Republican Party. They voted for Romney. They voted for McCain. They are party loyalists. They don't care who gets the nomination.
Here is his hard core.
If, on November 8, Trump vows to run in 2020, this hard core could be mobilized. If he launches a full-blown website that will train his supporters in Republican Party activism, beginning with attending precinct meetings, he will hold onto maybe three million of them. That would be significant.
If Trump is serious, he has a November 8 non-concession speech ready. He will have his fallback program ready. He must have a program to keep them in the political trenches. The program must provide training for local activists. The site will then pillory Hillary for four years. It will be a frontal assault on the Establishment.
I don't think he will do any of this. I think his hard-core followers will drift away. Entropy is the universe's default mode. It will be a huge missed opportunity.
Richard Viguerie, in 1965, built a mailing list empire from the list of Barry Goldwater's donors. In 1980, Reagan was elected. I think Viguerie's mailing list made this possible.
Trump can do this if he wants to . . . at some price in terms of precious time. I don't think he wants to pay this price.
Trump has set the stage for Hillary's defeat in 2020. He has warned that the present economy is a bubble. A candidate like Rand Paul can run with this. He has not alienated Trump's supporters. I don't think Ted Cruz can do this. His "vote your conscience" speech has precluded this. The Establishment hates him. The Establishment will block him in 2020, even if he is re-elected to the Senate.
Yet the presence of Trump's supporters has shaken the globalists. They have seen that there is a hard core of opposition. They had not seen this before. Brexit and Trump's candidacy have revealed the existence of a voting bloc that will no longer go along.
I don't know if they will show up in 2020, but if the economy is in shambles, they will. They will not forget Trump's message.