All Out Panic Over Trump

How many times have we heard that This is it, Trump has now gone too far? I always want to ask Too far for whom? For the GOP base voters who have put him on top of the polls? 

We could put together a pretty neat collage of all the times that Trump's imminent end has been predicted. Think Progress, has in fact done this:

"The Republican establishment is nearing full-blown panic about Donald Trump."

"The demise of Trump’s candidacy has been predicted by centrist Republicans and the media alike virtually since the day it began. But there is no empirical evidence at all to suggest it is happening."

"Last month, the liberal ThinkProgress collated more than 30 predictions of the business mogul’s imminent demise. One typical example was The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, who discerned “the beginning of the end of Trump” in mid-July, soon after the mogul criticized the Vietnam War record of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) "

"Despite all that, Trump has led the RealClearPolitics (RCP) polling average in a virtually unbroken spell for four months. The only person to briefly wrest the lead away from him, Dr. Ben Carson, appears to be fading. And numerous polls show Trump drawing double the support of his closest establishment-friendly rival, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) "

"Add to all this the fact that Trump’s lead over the rest of the GOP field has expanded since the terrorist attacks in Paris, and it becomes clear why anxiety among his many Republican critics is reaching new heights."

“He has a real shot at this. He is the clear front-runner,” said Ron Bonjean, a consultant and former aide to GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/261252-gop-in-panic-over-trump

How you can still claim he doesn't have a nontrivial chance of winning is beyond me, but Nate Silver and friends still love to tell us that the polls mean nothing, and that no one is paying attention. 

Evidently, everyone will decide on the 11;30 p.m. before the Iowa Caucus in February. What has happened the last week is interesting. Because-contrary to what Nate says-we are getting perilously close to Iowa, a load of pundits-Jonathan Alter is a classic example-who are simply declaring Trump is over now. 

It's going to happen this time. He went too far in making fun of that journalist who wrote the piece years ago about the rumor that there were Muslims cheering in a tailgate party on 9/11. 

He was mocking the disabled the Very Serious Pundits cry and this is it. He's finished. He's gone too far. Meanwhile, you have Kaisch's anti Trump ads that compare Trump to Hitler-the Muslim database, beating up the Black Lives Matter protesters, etc.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/11/25/kasich_super_pac_ad_compares_a_fellow_republican_to_nazis

Alter has been simply declaring this a fact that this is it for Trump. He will drop now. The pundits are simply discussing it as already established fact that Trump has dropped or will definitely start to ASAP and that this is now a race with Rubio and Cruz, full stop. 

Fascinating anxiety formation. At this point I think the chances of Trump not at least being a factor well into Spring and quite possibly up until the convention are remote indeed. But this is what the Serious Pundits are telling us. 

Yet it seems quite plausible that this will backfire-certainly that's the impression you get from Rush. The base may well not take kindly to Kaisch calling them Nazis. 

The pundit have been wrong 30 times but surely they are right this time. Of course, the real answer to this is what Krugman says. What is the real difference between Trump and the more serious candidates? 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/thinking-about-the-trumpthinkable/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

As to the database, Rubio himself didn't rule it out but suggested he'd expand it beyond only mosques. But we're supposed to ignore that. Rubio didn't mean it. We know because he's such an honest fellow, dark money and all. 

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/has-marco-rubio-made-sincere-comment.html

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/why-marco-rubios-conservative-solutions.html

Yet, Rubio is supposedly the serious candidate. Meanwhile with the attack of an anti abortion fanatic on Planned Parenthood on Friday, Rubio has nothing to say. 

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/11/28/3726240/the-political-motivations-of-the-planned-parenthood-shooting-suspect-revealed/

Not surprising from someone who says he'd be willing to support legislation with exceptions for rape and incest though he'd also be willing to support legislation without those exceptions.