Why Donald Trump Will Lose To Hillary Clinton
It turns out Donald Trump really is another Sarah Palin. By that I don’t mean that he’s ignorant, ill-prepared for the job, or incoherent in his opinions – all of those things were already clear months ago. Nor do I mean that he has no class, taste or manners – those things were also already clear months ago.
What I mean is that he has far less control over his own persona than I had previously assumed. Until fairly recently, I bought into the idea that Trump was a professional wrestler, putting on an outrageous show, breaking all the rules, and flummoxing all the traditional candidates who could neither win as the Marquess of Queensbury nor grab a chair and jump into the ring with him.
But I’m coming to the opinion, bit by bit, that, while Trump is indeed a wrestler, he’s also one of the saps who doesn’t know the fights are fake. He really believes he’s the character he’s been playing, and gets quite defensive when somebody expresses doubts about his actual prowess. This is a huge problem for Trump, because the core of his appeal is precisely that he’s the one who sees reality for what it is, and is willing to call a spade a spade.
.. The primary reason is that Trump – at the very moment that he most obviously needs to begin making a general-election argument – is instead driving the conversation back to himself, and to his peculiar obsessions and insecurities.
There’s no reason to do this. Trump no longer needs to be outrageous to get attention – he’s the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination; he has our attention.