Trump could sweep our entire Toss Up column and still come short of 270. New ratings: https://t.co/dzi8TFZh7z pic.twitter.com/z27Oy7Zq0x
— CookPoliticalReport (@CookPolitical) August 17, 2016
Folks, remember this! Remember I said this from day one! THE SYSTEM IS TOTALLY RIGGED!! VERY BAD!! @CookPolitical pic.twitter.com/RGGMG9ql9v
— DonaId J. Trump (@realDenaldTrump) August 18, 2016
Greg Sargent, in the Washington Post:
The big news of [Wednesday] morning — that Donald Trump has shaken up his campaign and is doubling down on the narrow strategy that worked in the GOP primaries but is failing catastrophically in the general election — would appear to leave only two possibilities.
Either Trump is delusional, to the point of being entirely incapable of appreciating why he’s currently losing to Hillary Clinton. Or he has a diabolical plan to break apart the Republican Party and pocket a big chunk of it for himself, for post-election fun and profit. My money is on the former…
One other explanation for Trump’s latest moves comes courtesy of CNN’s Brian Stelter, who suggested this morning that Trump may be positioning himself to launch a new media enterprise after a November loss. Bannon and former Fox exec Roger Ailes (who is also advising Trump), Stelter noted, would be just the team for Trump to do that. If so, perhaps Trump is very consciously sticking to his strategy of fusing white nationalism with rousing WWE style political entertainment, and very consciously avoiding broader demographic outreach that might dilute this approach’s appeal to his core constituencies, in order to split off a chunk of the GOP and keep it for himself later as a following and national audience. As I said, my money is on the Trump-is-delusional explanation, and the reporting appears to confirm it. But this alternate rationale does make some sense, too, and bears watching.
Apart from the ongoing schadenfreude festival, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the week?
Rearranging the dick chairs on the Titanic. https://t.co/i6inP7wqNu
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) August 17, 2016
Friday Morning Open Thread: Manic Panic ModePost + Comments (248)