The Least Republican Republican
Trying to Understand What is Happening: Observations on Super Tuesday
Allow me to makes some observations—which could be entirely wrong. I have no special insight or knowledge about how primaries or presidential elections works.
First, radio talk show hosts and TV pundits keep saying “Trump wins” or “Cruz wins.” The process of primary voting is not about who wins states. It is about delegates. Right now Ted Cruz—with 226 delegates—is only 90 delegates behind Donald Trump with 305. Rubio has 106 delegates. That means there are MORE delegates pledged together for Rubio and Cruz (and I’m not even counting Kasich and Dr. Carson), than for The Donald. Trump does not have 50% of the delegates and he just won 7 of the primary states on Super Tuesday. This means that winning and losing states is not the marker. What matters, the only thing that matters— is the delegate count.
Second, of the 11 Super Tuesday Republican primaries, 9 of them were open primaries. That means the Republican Party allowed cross-over voting in those states. In other words, Independents and “Archie Bunker” type blue collar Democrats were allowed to vote in 9 of these primaries. Other than Texas, which everyone expected to go to Cruz, and Minnesota, where Trump received his lowest vote yet, THE ONLY STATES THAT TRUMP LOST WERE THE CLOSED PRIMARY STATES of Alaska and Oklahoma.
Is this a fluke?
If this is not a coincidence (and it could be just a statistical oddity) then we are witnessing in the Trump Candidacy the disaffection of the Archie Bunker wing of the Democratic Party to the least Republican Republican. This was supposed to have happened during the Nixon era. Maybe we are witnessing the second great migration away from the Democrats.
Imagine being a Truman Democrat in a world of Hillarys and Bernies—just an apolitical, little guy, union member with a steel hat and American flag on his front porch. That guy. That guy hasn’t received a pay raise in 15 years since the collapse of the American economy and hasn’t seen us win a war in his life time. That’s the Trump supporter. And he sure beats Hillary and Bernie in my book. But he is NOT, absolutely not a Republican. And he is not a conservative in the Burkian sense.
But he is the guy that stands up when the flag goes by and runs into the Twin Towers when others are fleeing out of them.
Trump is a patriot, a protectionist, unconcerned with nuances of when life begins, doesn’t care about (or is unaware of) his appearance of being a bigot. He’s a tough law and order guy, talks down to women and doesn’t use pretty language. He won’t take guff from those Mexicans and Chinese. Archie Bunker all the way. I’ve never understood why anyone would be a Democrat, but they’re not all bad. Roosevelt got us through the Depression and won the War. Not a small legacy. But a very old one at this point.
Perhaps the Democrats are in even more disarray than the Republicans. Maybe the Roosevelt legacy has finally faded and there is no place for Archie in the Democratic Party anymore.
I realize this is just a hunch, but if you look at the polling numbers, more Americans are voting for Republican candidates than are showing up to vote for the Democrats. Everyone knows that there are more Democrats than Republicans.
Why is this? Two possibilities come to mind.
Is it because the Republican primaries are more exciting, more energizing? Is it that the Democratic contest is so repulsive that good Democrats refuse to be given the Hobson’s choice of a sociopath or a Marxist?
I don’t know.
But if even one of these questions can be answered in the affirmative, then we may have the answer why Trump is upsetting the apple cart. If both questions can be answered with yes, then Trump will be the next President of the United States.
