I wouldn't count him out, and I'm sure the Dems will take him plenty serious. But it seems like he faces a real demographic disadvantage is all. Just by letting the Heritage Foundation pick his SCOTUS nominees, he gave any socially liberal minded person a very good reason to vote against him. Shillary is looking at almost total unanimous support from anti-Trumps (includes some republicans), african americans, hispanics, LGBT supporters, women, and social conservatism fearing SCOTUS hawks. They'll probably split the youth that shows up. Trump has his middle class white and anti establishment/pc pools of support, and the loud little pockets of xenophobes, white supremacists, and disappointed evangelicals (they're getting more used to it now though) that manage to show up. It just doesn't seem to add up to enough in the general. I can see how he managed to pull off the primaries with the republican base being what they are and as relatively small as they are. But he's just so vulnerable to attacks on all those fronts, it will be easy for Shillary to consolidate support among those demographics that trump has spit in the face of and laughed.
I could have it all wrong of course, but I'm starting to think Trump will flop. We'll just have to see, should be pretty obvious by august/september.
Actually, your analysis makes a lot of sense and you appear informed.
But I suspect whatever pitch Trump's currently making to knock-out Cruz, will be fairly different than his pitch in the general. Crazy as it sounds, I don't really believe most of his spiel. He's no Republican, and he's no conservative. He could've just as easily chose to run Dem or Indy.
Today, one of his PR guys claimed Trump is now going to start to pivot to the general and target Bernie's voters. That should be interesting, though I think he'd be wise to not pivot his message until after the convention - but that's just my personal thought.
So in effect, I think the way to evaluate Trump is: Firstly, evaluate his relatively recent historical track-record on his positions (say, 10-12 years), and then decide if you're willing to vote for who you believe the man may be, rather than what he says. Then, decide for oneself whether to take a risk following one's gut-feelings on him, or continue to face what I feel is a death of a thousand cuts from the status-quo establishment that's been occurring for over three decades. I see that, as what each of us has to decide. I know it sounds crazy, but I think that's the way Trump must be approached.
However, I would like to touch on the SC situation, and yes that might be the one thing that keeps me from voting for him (now that my first choice Bernie, is toast). I saw his supplying the list to Heritage at the time as a political ploy to lock-up the GOP
"anti-Trump due to SC" argument that was brewing. It was a stroke of political genius, IMO. And it literally silenced that argument immediately!
But I have little faith in this new conservative Trump being the real-deal. He vocally supported single-payer healthcare as long as I can remember, until just six weeks ago when he changed his mind after backlash from the GOP? I don't buy it. And I don't think he'll be their little foot-soldier, either.
