Donald Trump attacks John McCain in 2016 President race: republicans at crossroads
Now that Donald Trump is attacking John McCain for being a war hero, this next round of poll numbers is going to teach us a few things. Republican voters tend to build their identity around expressing support for troops and veterans at every turn. And yet Bush won by attacking McCain’s war hero status in 2000, and again by attacking John Kerry’s war hero status in 2004. But he did it in a more subtle manner by spreading lies about their war records. Trump is outright saying that McCain is a loser because he got captured. And I don’t know how that’s going to play on their side of the fence.
On the one hand, moderate traditional conservatives are now less likely to support Donald Trump than ever. But they’re not the ones who have been propping him up to begin with. His base is a mismatched combination of extremist “kill-em-all” conservatives, and oblivious “all-politicians-suck” moderates. And this may only make him more popular with both of those groups.
The extremists only care about shows of strength. By ferociously attacking a war hero like McCain, Trump is showing them that he’s afraid of literally no one. In their minds, that makes him the best candidate to go wipe out all of our “enemies” and turn America into the true conqueror that they believe it was always meant to be. It wouldn’t be a shock if these people decide that McCain is weak because he couldn’t stand up to Trump, and therefore he deserved to be attacked.
The “all politicians are the same” camp only care about finding a candidate who is willing to bash all other politicians, bash both parties, bash the government in general, and make them feel good about their own political ignorance. Trump is their man, if they decide they can overlook everything that’s inherently horrible about him. They’ll flinch at the idea of him attacking a war hero. But at the same time, McCain has been a senator for decades, and they’ll love that Trump is attacking such a prominent career politician.
This is likely the final nail in the coffin when it comes to the idea that Trump could actually win the general election if he were the republican nominee. Polls already show that moderate republicans would vote for Hillary just to keep him out of the White House, and that sentiment will get stronger after this incident.
But as for Trump’s chances of winning the republican nomination? Even as the mainstream continues to solidify against him, each fierce ugly attack he’s made has only driven him higher in the republican polls. We’ll see if this latest attack will continue that trend, or if he’s finally crossed the kind of line that even the most extremist of republicans can’t abide by.
@stableytimes