Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
My prediction is a democratic landslide even bigger than 2008), he will only have won because he took the nomination of a political party that is fracturing at the seams, and ran against a historically unpopular candidate on the other side (while being even more historically unpopular himself).
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To me this storyline of "historically unpopular candidates" sounds somewhat false, in the sense that I don't think it has as much to do with the candidates themselves as people like to say. (It also seems like a very unlikely situation to have happened just randomly.)
To me the "historical unpopularity" of the candidates is more telling of the level of cultural divide in the US at the moment. There is simply so much vitriol on both sides towards the other that
1) both sides are likely to act in ways which deliberately provokes the other (Trump especially does this all the time)
2) both candidates are more hated than they by any rational measure should be because so many people (most of whom don't really know much about the candidates) are simply very eager to hate the candidate on the other side no matter what.
I don't think that's even the whole of it though.
To me it seems that in our/their culture in general it's getting increasingly common to just hate everyone who doesn't agree with you politically.
The level of vitriol between the Sanders and Clinton camps seems to me especially ridiculous considering that they are candidates of the same party and apparently the Sanders and Clinton personally get along just fine, despite their differences.
I feel like we're living in very sad times. It seems to me like it's increasingly difficult to have meaningful political discussions with pretty much anyone anymore. (And I'm probably doing all the things that makes it difficult too.)
All that said:
Trump seems like a pretty special nutcase, and I really don't think he has as much of a chance as the media likes to portray.