As I write this, Democrat and Republican commentators alike assure us that given the spike in his \u201cunfavorables\u201d that one recent Washington Post poll purports to have tracked, Donald Trump\u2019s odds of winning in November are all but zilch.<\/p>\n
Whatever.<\/p>\n
The Washington Post is hardly the most trustworthy of sources when it comes to Trump, it\u2019s June, <\/em>and those who are touting these numbers as iron-clad proof that Trump is finished are either Hillary Clinton boosters or GOP NeverTrumpers.<\/p>\n And the latter have a track record of making predictions regarding Trump\u2019s demise that is anything but stellar.<\/p>\n Way back in May of 2012, after Mitt Romney embraced <\/em>Trump when the latter endorsed him, George Will couldn\u2019t imagine \u201cwhat voter is going to vote\u201d for Romney after he had been seen with \u201cthis bloviating ignoramus<\/a>\u201d Trump. It was \u201cobvious,\u201d from Will\u2019s perspective, that Trump was as big a political loser as anyone.<\/p>\n In April of 2015, shortly before Trump threw his hat in the ring, Will said that he \u201choped\u201d that Trump would run for the presidency so that he would be \u201cpredictably shellacked<\/a> [.]\u201d As recently as this past March, Will wrote confidently that he thinks \u201cwe may have passed peak Trump<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Five years ago, when Trump toyed with the notion of pitching a bid for the presidency, Fox News guru Charles Krauthammer referred to him as the GOP\u2019s \u201cAl Sharpton,\u201d a \u201cprovocateur, and clown, unserious<\/a>\u201d (for a decidedly different take on the prospect of a 2012 Trump run, see here<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0 Krauthammer contended that Haley Barbour <\/em>would be most likely to \u201cwin\u201d the 2012 primary and general contests.<\/p>\n Immediately after the first GOP primary debate last August, Krauthammer told Megyn Kelly that what audiences saw in the real estate mogul\u2019s performance was \u201cthe collapse of Donald Trump<\/a>.\u201d His rivals, Krauthammer continued, \u201cleft him out in the cold.\u201d<\/p>\n In reality, it was Trump who was leaving all 16 <\/em>of his competitors \u201cout in the cold.\u201d Yet in spite of the historically unprecedented crowdedness of this field, Karl Rove continually told us that Trump had a \u201chigh floor and low ceiling<\/a>\u201d of support. He also predicted that the nominee would be Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, or Marco Rubio. These three candidates constituted the \u201ctop tier.\u201d The third tier was comprised of those candidates \u201cwho are unlikely to break through.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Trump, Rove dismissed him as a \u201ccomplete idiot<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Former movie critic and talk radio host Michael Medved charged Trump with being a narcissist. His presidential campaign is \u201centirely about one man and his brash personality, and has nothing to do with needed conservative reforms.\u201d Medved drew this conclusion, it\u2019s important to note, from the fact that, in the first GOP debate, Trump \u201csaid he couldn\u2019t commit to support the ultimate nominee, and refused to rule out a third party run.\u201d<\/p>\n This refusal, Medved asserts, gives rise to the inescapable question: \u201cIf he [Trump] really cares about the conservative principles he now espouses, why wouldn\u2019t he promise to support the Republican nominee<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n Given that he\u2019s a NeverTrumper, Medved stands condemned by the measure by which he gauged Trump\u2019s conservatism, for it is now he <\/em>who refuses to endorse \u201cthe ultimate nominee.\u201d<\/p>\n Redstate<\/em> editor and Fox News contributor Erik Erikson wrote of Trump one year ago that he and his \u201cadvisers\u2026directly did himself a disservice by playing for bombast and not statesman.\u201d Trump, he explained, \u201cwill not be a winner,\u201d but \u201ca spoiler.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump \u201cwon\u2019t get the nomination<\/a>,\u201d Erikson maintained.<\/p>\n In August of 2015, Glenn Beck promised that Trump could never win the general election. He also said at one and the same moment that \u201cresearch\u201d suggests that Trump may have already<\/em> reached his \u201cceiling\u201d<\/a> of support (remember, this is shortly after the first debate when there were still a total of 17 candidates in the race).<\/p>\n In January of 2015, just five months before Trump declared his candidacy, Jonah Goldberg rejected a comparison that had been wrought between Sarah Palin and Trump. Unlike the former, Goldberg explained, Trump \u201chas a long record of clownishly pretending he\u2019s going to run for president [.]\u201d That \u201cpeople take him seriously,\u201d Goldberg remarked, \u201cdrives me crazy,\u201d for Trump is \u201ca bane of humanity<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Last summer, Goldberg conceded that Trump was \u201centertaining.\u201d He also assured those who would listen to him that the \u201cGOP\u2019s Trump problem will eventually melt away<\/a>.\u201d In another article, Goldberg dogmatically declared: \u201cHe has no chance of becoming president, but he has the huge potential to deny his alleged party a White House victory in 2016.\u201d Trump, Goldberg told us, will likely \u201cfind an excuse to retreat<\/a>\u201d from the GOP race. But by then the damage would have been done.<\/p>\n Of course, it is now Goldberg and company, in their refusal to back their party\u2019s nominee, who are doing all that they can to deny their <\/em>\u201calleged\u201d party a White House victory.<\/p>\n Shortly before the Iowa caucuses, Bill Kristol said that if Trump lost (which he did, by one<\/em> delegate, to Ted Cruz), then the Trump \u201cmystique disappears\u201d and he becomes \u201cjust another candidate [.]\u201d Even at this point in time, Kristol openly entertained the prospect of supporting a third party candidate, though he admitted to being only \u201csemi-serious\u201d about it, for \u201cI don\u2019t think that Trump will be the nominee [.]\u201d<\/p>\n In July of 2015, Rich Lowry was jubilant. He blogged: \u201cYes, Iowa, We Have a Frontrunner<\/a>.\u201d For Lowry, this frontrunner\u2019s name was Scott Walker. And Commentary\u2019s <\/em>Peter Wehner confidently wrote at the same time that Trump\u2019s remarks concerning John McCain\u2019s having been captured in Vietnam marked \u201cthe moment it all blew apart for The Donald.\u201d At this critical moment, Wehner told us, Trump\u2019s campaign became \u201ctoast<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The experts, the Trump candidacy has shown, are nothing of the kind. Either they are really that incompetent at making predictions or, which is at least as likely, they were actually trying to determine, rather than forecast, Trump\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n Things haven\u2019t changed. But the NeverTrumpers should exercise caution, for whether they succeed or not in sabotaging Trump\u2019s electoral prospects, the millions who back him may eventually form a \u201cNever\u201d movement of their own\u2014a NeverGOP.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I write this, Democrat and Republican commentators alike assure us that given the spike in his \u201cunfavorables\u201d that one recent Washington Post poll purports to have tracked, Donald Trump\u2019s odds of winning in November are all but zilch. Whatever. The Washington Post is hardly the most trustworthy of sources when it comes to Trump,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n