Yes, The Real The New Awesome Primary Thread

Ah, but the problem is, the masses were spoon-fed a different story. The decline in their standard of living was blamed on trade deals and illegal immigrants. That was the narrative that the Republicans have been utilizing to foster outrage in their base as a means to get them to vote.However, as you alluded to, the true cause of the decline in their standard of living has been corporate outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to cheap labor regions. And while they may cite 'NAFTA' as being a contributor to this issue, that does not hold water. Most of the outsourcing of jobs went to countries outside of North America. Pakistan. India. China. Indonesia. Etc.So it wasn't the poor Mexican family who snuck across the border and are now picking fruit to make ends meet that took their jobs: it was the upper echelons of corporate power that found a way to increase their margins and thereby line their own pockets.The Donald is essentially a manifestation of all that pent up outrage. Now, the Republicans are realizing (too late) that years of rhetoric and negative campaigning have created a monster that is outside their ability to control.Interestingly, there is similar outrage on the left which helped Bernie with the success he had up until recently. But most of that anger I think was a partial hold-over of the Occupy Wall Street types. The younger crowd who had to step into a horrible labor market in the aftermath of The Great Recession.

Say hello to Republican Jesus:

I think the real issue goes beyond just Trump. Yes, there are morons out there. But there is also a pervasive anger that permeates on both sides of the aisle.The main issue is on the Republican side, they decided to fuel the fires of this anger as a means to energize their base and get votes. Unfortunately, they grossly underestimated how much their rhetoric was having a negative effect. This came up in their so-called 'autopsy' after the 2012 election. Yet despite that, many on the right continued to fuel those fires of anger. This caused a fracture in the Republican party, whereby the more moderate voices were voted out of office and now, the inmates are running the asylum. This fracture was most evident with the nutjob wing of the Tea Party basically paralyzing the government with their head gopher Ted Cruz using filibusters to shut everything down. Boehner was ultimately unable to galvanize things towards the center. And was eventually tossed out.I know I am focusing on the Republicans, but there is anger on the left as well which is evidenced by the surge in popularity for Bernie Sanders. Most of this popularity is coming from the younger crowd, mainly the Millennials. Many of them are still feeling the sting of the aftermath of the Great Recession and are stepping into an economy with massive headwinds against them. Naturally, they are not too happy with this outcome.One thing I firmly believe (in regards to the Democrats this time) is that I think their inability or apathy towards not pursuing more indictments against the Wall Street crowd was a massive tactical error. Elizabeth Warren was the voice pushing for this, but Democrats decided to help their donor class and let the matter fade away. And that has not only fueled anger in their base, but also set a horrible precedent. i.e. Hey Wall Street: we will privatize your gains and socialize your losses. No worries!Needless to say, this is something that Hillary herself is not absolved of responsibility since she coddles many of the Wall Street donor crowd including Goldman Sux.But perhaps some traction can be made post November. Especially if the Supreme Court can swing a little more left. That will allow us to over-turn that idiotic Citizens United ruling. Time till tell.

Agreed. And for the life of me, how this was ever even considered as a viable concept by the Supreme Court was beyond belief from my perspective.A corporation is a conglomerate of various individuals. How can one consider it as some 'singular entity'? It makes no sense. If you go through the various employees of a company, I am sure you will find varying personal and political beliefs. But ultimately, those at the top can use the power of the corporation to push their own specific agenda, regardless of the views of those who work at that company. Doesn't seem very democratic to me. Smacks more of plutocracy.

Most pundits are stating it will likely be Chris Christie.I wonder what their campaign song choice might be. My money's on 'This is the End' by The Doors.

John Kasich has just dopped out as well.John Kasich drops out of presidential race | CNN PoliticsI wonder just how much egg is on the face of establishment Republicans right now. For all their talk about how Trump was not viable. For all their efforts, including millions of dollars spent on more mainstream Republican candidates like Jeb or Rubio. To now be looking at the prospect of a Trump candidate just has to be almost surreal.So what's next for Republicans? Accept what has happened and get behind their candidate knowing full well he will lose in November? Take a tactical approach and try to save the Senate? Time will tell.

I believed they actually called it an 'autopsy'. Which may be appropriate since Trump is most likely to cause the Zombie Apocalypse.I think the main issue in the Republican party is their predilection towards living in a bubble that was created and maintained by the various right-wing talk shows, radio personalities and news networks like Fox. I have relatives who are staunch Republicans and I am sometimes flabbergasted by their sheer lack of knowledge or outright ignorance regarding facts in our country.The right-wing machine became so hell bent on ousting Obama that they basically fueled a situation telling people how terrible things are regardless of what the facts actually stated. The economy is horrible. Our enemies are at our doorstep. Socialism is everywhere. Etc, etc.To draw an analogy, I personally think George W. Bush was the worst president in modern history and likely in the top five of the worst ever. Now I don't pull this viewpoint out of thin air. I quantify it with facts, like so:- 9/11 happened on his watch and was linked to his inability to read CIA reports on threats to our nation
- The Iraq war was completely unjustified and predicated under the notion that WMDs existed, despite all evidence to the contrary
- The surplus we enjoyed that was paying down our debt turned into a massive deficit and debt as a result of his tax cuts that favored the wealthy at the expense of the middle class
- He oversaw the largest expansion of government increase since Reagan despite his label as a conservative; all while seeing the smallest private sector job growth in decades
- The cronyism in his office directly led to the totally inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina and likely contributed to the deaths of American citizens
- His complete mis-handling of the economy took us to the brink of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; and he solved that by bailing out the very people who helped cause itI could go on.Now, when I hear the right lambast Obama, they start citing facts that are completely inconsistent with what is actually real:- Obama isn't eligible to be president because he is not natural born: Wrong
- The economy has done worse under Obama: Wrong
- We are weaker today and our enemies are coming to get us: Wrong (hint: Bin Laden is dead)
- Obamacare is socialism: Wrong; it is mandated private insurance
- Obama has added more to our debt than all other presidents combined: Wrong (And a pointless metric due to inflation)I have heard these talking points over and over from the right. And when you press them on specifics, they start saying that government data 'can't be trusted'. They are in full paranoia mode at this stage. And the fault lies 1000% with the Republican party themselves and this attitude they took after the 2008 election. Be obstructionist and don't compromise. Fuel anger on the far right. Block legislation. Shut down the government. On and on.The one thing the Republicans espouse that I agree with totally now is that government doesn't work. But not for the reasons they are conveying. My conclusion is that when they are in charge, government CLEARLY doesn't work. Not because it can't. But because it won't.

You may want to check out the Real Clear Politics website:realclearpolitics.comIt has data on the latest polling as well as details on the electoral college.To make a long story short, the road to the presidency for any GOP candidate is very difficult. CNN has some details on that as well at this URL:Road to 270: CNN's general election map | CNN PoliticsAs you can see, the Dems already have an edge out of the gate with states that are either solid Dem or lean Dem.I believe the main decider will be my home state of Florida. If one looks at the electoral map, there is virtually no way for a GOP candidate to win the presidency without Florida. The Dems already have California and New York in the bag. Texas goes Repub but without another high population state, the Repubs are pretty much screwed.Florida went for Obama in the last two election cycles. And considering what Trump has said about Hispanics and Latinos, I am guessing he is going to have a hell of a time winning here. Plus his gender gap is worse than any other candidate before him.

Real Clear Politics has a pretty large number of polls being aggregated. You can see the results here:realclearpolitics.comBut be mindful of the polling entity, as they sometimes produce skews depending on the sample; i.e. if the respondents are from more conservative areas.Interestingly, the most recent Fox News poll has Clinton up by 7. So if a conservative leaning entity like Fox is still showing a negative against Trump, that doesn't bode well.Mind you, we are a long way from November. Anything can happen.