WASHINGTON ― Political junkies around the globe are worried that we crazy Americans are about to anoint a clownish, racist, authoritarian billionaire named Donald Trump to be president of the United States.
That’s completely understandable.
Hasn’t he rocketed to a lead in the polls? Aren’t the American media obsessed with him and the ratings he produces? Haven’t the experts who discounted him been wrong every step of the way? Isn’t Big Money all that matters in the conduct of U.S. elections? Isn’t he merely using cruder-than-usual words to express an agenda of exclusion and contempt for immigrants and foreigners that is powerful not only in the U.S., but across the entire planet?
Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.
But none of that means Trump will actually be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2017. Or ever.
To understand why, you need to look a little closer at the insanely (wonderfully?) long, complex and theatrical way in which we Americans elect our chief executive.
Here are the main points to remember:
A Month Is A Year, And A Year Is A Lifetime. Events move faster than ever, in part because attention spans are shorter than ever. Trump announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination exactly three months ago. At the time he was a blip on the radar screen in national polls. What goes up that fast can plummet just as quickly.
No One Votes Until Feb. 1, 2016. It’s four and a half months until Republican voters cast their first ballots, in the Iowa caucuses. Can Trump sustain the fizz and fight of his anti-everything candidacy? The longer the slog, the more like a regular candidate he will inevitably become.
Debates, Debates, Debates. The Republicans are scheduled to stage at least nine debates between now and late next spring before their nomination race will be decided. Can Trump unveil and defend policy proposals and plans for a real administration? He’ll need to do so to fill the time. Bluster won’t carry him all the way.
And Money, Money, Money. Trump claims that he is and will be “self-financing” his campaign. And why not, since he claims that he is worth $10 billion? But, even accepting his figures, it is not clear how “liquid” his wealth is and how much he really is willing to spend in an environment where a rival or two may be able to raise and spend $500 million. Does Trump really want to spend that much? More to the point, does his daughter?
The Details. Trump has put out one detailed policy proposal, on immigration. It’s full of argumentative specifics about sending people back where they came from. Politically, it’s his safest issue for gaining early Republican support. But now he’s said that he’ll soon unveil his tax proposals. His views there aren’t entirely orthodox within the GOP, which may begin to slow his momentum. Other policy proposals could prove equally complex, politically.
The Establishment. It’s true that the GOP “powers that be” are largely powers that were. But they see a chance to win back the White House ― to go along with their control of Congress and, nominally, the U.S. Supreme Court ― and they will fight to the death to keep that cross-Washington control from being ruined by the likes of Trump. It will take months for them to chose their candidate, but they will. And when they do, they will unload on The Donald.
Ground Game. Trump so far has focused on mass rallies. But if he is to win in Iowa and New Hampshire ― which are essential to his chances ― he’s going to have to expose himself to the unpredictable give-and-take of one-on-one conversations. He can crush campaigns rivals with a nasty comment; he dares not do that to individual voters. That would violate the pope-like foot-washing rituals of American politics.
His Core Message. The spark that started the Trump fire was racial and ethnic fear. He gained a foothold in politics by questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the U.S. He caused a sensation when he charged that many undocumented Mexican immigrants were drug dealers and rapists. Such comments gave him a base, but it is limited. Most Republicans really don’t think they can win the White House with the Trump hate message.
Mistakes. No one, not even Donald Trump, gets through an entire campaign without putting a foot wrong. He will, and it will be magnified by his egotistical stance.
The GOP Convention. The Republicans won’t officially settle on their presidential nominee until July 2016. This year the nominating convention will be held in Cleveland, which is the home base of another Republican presidential candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and isn’t exactly a hotbed of radical political change. If Trump hasn’t won the GOP race outright by then, he isn’t going to be able to pull it together on the floor of the Quicken Loans Arena.
The General Election. One of the oddities of American presidential elections is that they spend many more months deciding who wins the major party nominations than they spend deciding who wins the White House. The nominees chosen by the Republican and Democratic parties are usually saner and more moderate than the excesses they survived. That’s a remnant of the still-powerful centrism, thankfully, that controls American politics. The general election doesn’t roll around until November 2016. Should Trump somehow have managed to win the Republican nomination, he would still have to prove to millions of undecided middle-of-the-road voters that he was not someone from the fringes.
And if he gets that far, and manages to do that, he won’t really be Donald Trump anymore.