So the big question is, can Trump win the general election? I'm not so quick to buy in to the accepted wisdom that he would get routed by Hillary. In fact, I don't like the odds of him losing it at all.
So far, in spite of his success in the primaries, Trump hasn't been popular among Republican voters. A lot of Republicans have positively hated him. But we know how partisanship works, especially in this day and age, and especially among Republican voters. When it comes down to it, roughly the same percentage of them will come out to vote, and to vote for the Republican candidate, as usually do. We're seeing Republicans come around to him already.
Democratic voters will of course not vote for him, but they will not vote for him to about the same degree that they usually don't vote for Republican candidates. Never mind that the attitude of a lot of Sanders voters, which Sanders himself does plenty to egg on, would keep a lot of them from supporting Clinton.
That leaves independent/"undecided" voters. That's a tough read, but I'm not encouraged by the fact that "undecided" tends to mean "politically ignorant". Any remotely informed undecided voter would know enough to understand that they couldn't possibly vote Trump. Alas, many of them might not even reach the level of being remotely informed.
But I'm most worried about the "X" factor of one or more national traumatic events. A downturn in the economy or a major terrorist attack (or any terrorist attack with American victims) are events that tend to turn us collectively stupid, and they would turn us collectively stupid in ways that would favor Trump.
So yeah. These are amusing but scary times.
