All eyes are on how the Republican Party is about to implode with Donald Trump all settled as the GOP presidential nominee.
The party is going to die, say some. Certainly the Republicans lose the Senate, maybe even the House.
No way Trump beats Hillary Clinton, in any case.
And I get it, and I also personally know lifelong Republicans who are saying they won’t vote for Trump in November, likely not voting at all as opposed to jumping across party lines to cast their lots with Clinton.
But I wonder how many of my lifelong Democratic friends are going to follow through with their vows to never vote for Clinton?
Their rhetoric still means something given that it’s only about 99.98 percent decided that Clinton is going to be the nominee, with Bernie Sanders still possessing the fabled mathematical chance.
But when it becomes clear even to the diehards that it’s all said and done for, what then?
I really don’t know, though from a scan of my Facebook news feed, numerous times a day, I can only presume that there will be some lingering bad feeling among progressives, who alternatively muse, as if they were channeling their inner conservative, about Clinton’s email issues, or complain about her vote on the Iraq war, or her Goldman Sachs speeches.
Do you just tuck that stuff away in the old back pocket once Bernie has his Sanders. Out. moment?
And if the progressives can suppress their Hillary Hate, how is it that conservatives can’t do the same with their push to Dump Donald?
Party politics is as much a fan-based spectator team sport than anything else. OK, it’s entirely a fan-based spectator team sport, which is to say, if you’re a D, you’re a D, and if you’re an R, you’re an R.
A sizable number of people claim to pollsters that they’re independents, that they vote for the man, or the woman, not the party, but almost all who say that are either BS’g the pollsters or themselves.
The population of people who actually make up their minds on the relative qualifications of the candidates, the way they identify the problems that need addressing, and their policy proposals meant to address them, is comparable to the tip of the tip of your average iceberg.
The rest of us root, root, root for those we decide are the good guys and internalize and then justify everything that our guys say and do the same way we defend the honor of our favorite football or basketball or baseball team.
Which, for the purposes of the current discussion, means we shouldn’t be surprised to see Rs who are saying now that there’s no way in a hundred hells that they’d ever vote for Trump quietly deciding to go with the orange man with awful hair because he’s not Hillary, same as we shouldn’t be surprised to see the Ds who are vowing to punish Hillary for whatever her transgressions against progressivism are today eventually coming around because, hey, Trump, amirite?
And now we get back to the thrust of this column, which was to examine the impact of the intraparty haters on the bottom line of the presidential race.
We’re assuming that this one is going to play to Clinton’s advantage, in McGovern-like proportions. But I’d be betting right now that this one is going to be too close to call for quite a while, if not to the finish line, and whatever you think about how offensive it is that politics can get so dirty, well, we haven’t seen dirty, though we will.
Column by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
