Late Wednesday, a lawyer for Trump, Marc E. Kasowitz, wrote to theTimes demanding a retraction of its article and threatening to sue for libel. TheTimes refused, saying it had “published newsworthy information about a subject of deep public concern.”
.. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal, citing Trump’s advisers and other Republican sources, reported that the candidate had “effectively given up the conventional wisdom of trying to reach voters far outside his core of support.” Rather than reaching out to moderates, independents, and other groups he would need to bring over to win a majority in November, the Journal article said, Trump now “plans to renew the nationalist themes that built his base and amplify his no-holds-barred attacks against Hillary Clinton to try to depress Democratic voter turnout.”
.. Such a blitzkrieg strategy makes no sense, of course. If there is one thing that is guaranteed to get Democrats to the polls, it is the sight of Trump going around the country for the next three and half weeks inciting bigotry and racial hatred, launching personal attacks on his opponents, and generally acting like a deranged person. But, as my colleague Ryan Lizza pointed out on Wednesday, there is reason to believe that Trump’s true motivation is no longer winning: it is finding someone to blame for his upcoming defeat.
.. This is reality. You know it, they know it, and pretty much the whole world knows it. The establishment and their media neighbors wield control over this nation through means that are very well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, rapist, xenophobe, and morally deformed. They will attack you. They will slander you. They will seek to destroy your career and your family. They will seek to destroy everything about you, including your reputation. They will lie, lie, lie, and then again they will do worse than that.
A Few Trump Fans Suddenly See the Man They’ve Been Defending
Technically we’re supposed to welcome previous Trump fans-turned-foes with open arms. But barring some miraculous comeback by Ted Cruz, the Trump campaign will have cost the Republican party the presidency after eight years of Obama, and perhaps the Senate and even the House — not to mention Scalia’s replacement on the Supreme Court. Years of effort spent attempting to dispel the accusations of inherent Republican misogyny, xenophobia, hypocrisy, ignorance, and blind rage have been undone by Trump’s campaign. And every Trump advocate in front of a camera had a hand in this.
.. To be fair, I must admit that the government of Canada (and the province of Ontario) invested $13 billion to help save GM, a small fraction of the tab paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Canada lost about $3 billion as a result of its investment.
.. Against the odds, Trump has won widespread support in some of the most liberal Democratic areas of the country. He carried 40 percent of Cook County’s Republican vote, which includes the city of Chicago and its inner suburbs, allowing him to take most of Illinois’s delegates.
.. What explains this dynamic? A major reason is that Trump’s (mainly white) supporters are disproportionately concentrated near areas with many minorities, suggesting that strained race relations may have played a role in their backing of Trump. He has won over white Republican voters in rural Southern counties where African-Americans make up a majority of the vote, and he has performed well in urban neighborhoods where the racial composition of surrounding areas has changed over the years.
The Five Stages of Donald Trump’s Grief Over His Loss in Iowa
Following his inability to win as many votes as Mr. Cruz, Mr. Trump admitted that more focus should have been put on his ground game. But rather than taking personal responsibility, Mr. Trump said he would have invested more if he knew there was a problem.
“I think, in retrospect, we should have had a better ground game,” Mr. Trump said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I would have funded a better ground game, but people told me our ground game was fine.”