The End Of Trump: Keep Your Eyes On The Prize

He's a one-trick pony, and the theatrics that won him first place in the circus that is the Republican primary are about as useful as a third nostril in the general election.
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Trump is finished, he is toast -- as many of us predicted, he never had a chance to be president. He's a one-trick pony, and the theatrics that won him first place in the circus that is the Republican primary are about as useful as a third nostril in the general election. But there are so many obvious reasons for his inevitable implosion that it would overcrowd this page to even mention them here. He's now down to a 12.5 percent chance of winning, by Nate Silver's estimate at FiveThirtyEight.

Just a few weeks ago, Michael Moore was among those who said that Trump would win. But Moore got the important things right -- the anthropology and social psychology of Trump supporters, for example, and most importantly the direction of change at the present moment:

Don't get me wrong. I have great hope for the country I live in. Things are better. The left has won the cultural wars. Gays and lesbians can get married. A majority of Americans now take the liberal position on just about every polling question posed to them: Equal pay for women -- check. Abortion should be legal -- check. Stronger environmental laws -- check. More gun control -- check. Legalize marijuana -- check. A huge shift has taken place -- just ask the socialist who won 22 states this year.

He could have added much more on the economic front: inequality has become a major political issue for the first time since probably the 1930s. Perhaps most importantly: the Federal Reserve, which pretty much determines the level of unemployment in the United States and had for decades felt free to ignore its legal mandate to pursue full employment, now finds itself under unprecedented political pressure not to throw people out of work by raising interest rates.

This op-ed was originally published by The Hill on August 12, 2016. Read the rest here.

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and the president of Just Foreign Policy. He is also the author of the new book "Failed: What the 'Experts' Got Wrong About the Global Economy" (2015, Oxford University Press). You can subscribe to his columns here.

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