Trump and the Madness of Crowds
One such assumption, that voters follow the signals sent by party elites and officeholders, is the basis of the famous “party decides” thesis in political science, which was invoked early and often to explain why Trump couldn’t possibly end up as the Republican nominee.
.. a kind of “wisdom of crowds” thesis could suffice to explain why major political parties don’t nominate people like, well, Donald Trump.
.. Keep in mind primary voters are not typical Americans, not even typical voters. (There are over 300 million people in the United States; about 125 million people voted in the 2012 general election; to date, Donald Trump has won about 10 million votes.)
.. Yes, Trump has adopted conservative positions on various issues, but he’s done so in a transparently cynical fashion, constantly signaling that he doesn’t really believe in or understand the stance that he’s taking, constantly suggesting a willingness to bargain any principle away. Except for immigration hawks, practically every ideological faction in the party regards Trump with mistrust, disgust, suspicion, fear. Pro-lifers, foreign-policy hawks, the Club for Growth, libertarians — nobody thinks Trump is really on their side. And yet he’s winning anyway.
.. In other word, he’s untrustworthy and unelectable — a combination that you’d normally expect engaged partisans to consider and reject. And yet he’s winning anyway.