Why is Trump Getting So Many Delegates if the Repubs Hate Him So Much?

[Silver]

This political talk is too confusing.

[KevinM1]

He's still only polling a plurality even with the race down to  two and a half. That plurality appears to be solid though - unfazed by significant attacks against him. It continuously looks like he'll retain his delegate lead but will have a hard time winning a majority.

As to the meat of the OP question, the shepherds have lost the flock. We saw the beginnings of this four years ago when it took the bulk of the primary for Mitt Romney to shake off Rick Santorum - a man who makes Trump look sane. The base Republican voters have stopped buying what the Republican establishment is selling. Rather than going Democrat or even independent, they're turning to ever more fringe Republican candidates.

The Republican party is in some serious shit right now. They need to reinvent themselves. They need to present a sane platform, one that is a reasonable alternative to the Democratic party. It need not be one which everyone will agree with but it needs to be a platform worthy of consideration. They don't have that now. They have fallen so far behind the times and are so out of touch with the average American, Republican voters are turning to ever-more fringe candidates like Trump. The party needs to get in line with the 21st century and do it quick or they will go the way of the Whigs.

Having a primarily Republican family, the general idea they hold is that their defeats in the last two Presidential elections is due to the candidates not being conservative enough.  Let that sink in for a moment.  They've convinced themselves that past failures were Republicans In Name Only, and that a True Conservative™ is the way to go moving forward.  They point to the Tea Party success during the midterm elections as proof of this hypothesis rather than a continuation of liberals simply not giving a shit and voting like they usually don't.

So, they're purposely expunging moderates in the party in favor of radicals because they think that's what America wants.  They think it's the path to victory.  The end result is an ever divided country, with the radical conservatives slowly representing an actual legitimate danger to everyone else (see: the Bundy clan, the assault on protesters at Trump rallies).

Rational, non-"Let's embrace some weird bible fueled vision of twisted 1950s Americana" conservatives are pissed and scared and shitting themselves because the brand is becoming irrevocably tarnished.  They opened their tent to barbarians and were ousted from it by them.

I do think that the GOP will change, either with this election or soon.  There's a huge rift forming, and I don't think the smart ones want to be associated with the crazies any longer.

[AFTT47]

He's still only polling a plurality even with the race down to  two and a half. That plurality appears to be solid though - unfazed by significant attacks against him. It continuously looks like he'll retain his delegate lead but will have a hard time winning a majority.

As to the meat of the OP question, the shepherds have lost the flock. We saw the beginnings of this four years ago when it took the bulk of the primary for Mitt Romney to shake off Rick Santorum - a man who makes Trump look sane. The base Republican voters have stopped buying what the Republican establishment is selling. Rather than going Democrat or even independent, they're turning to ever more fringe Republican candidates.

The Republican party is in some serious shit right now. They need to reinvent themselves. They need to present a sane platform, one that is a reasonable alternative to the Democratic party. It need not be one which everyone will agree with but it needs to be a platform worthy of consideration. They don't have that now. They have fallen so far behind the times and are so out of touch with the average American, Republican voters are turning to ever-more fringe candidates like Trump. The party needs to get in line with the 21st century and do it quick or they will go the way of the Whigs.

Having a primarily Republican family, the general idea they hold is that their defeats in the last two Presidential elections is due to the candidates not being conservative enough.  Let that sink in for a moment.  They've convinced themselves that past failures were Republicans In Name Only, and that a True Conservative™ is the way to go moving forward.  They point to the Tea Party success during the midterm elections as proof of this hypothesis rather than a continuation of liberals simply not giving a shit and voting like they usually don't.

So, they're purposely expunging moderates in the party in favor of radicals because they think that's what America wants.  They think it's the path to victory.  The end result is an ever divided country, with the radical conservatives slowly representing an actual legitimate danger to everyone else (see: the Bundy clan, the assault on protesters at Trump rallies).

Rational, non-"Let's embrace some weird bible fueled vision of twisted 1950s Americana" conservatives are pissed and scared and shitting themselves because the brand is becoming irrevocably tarnished.  They opened their tent to barbarians and were ousted from it by them.

I do think that the GOP will change, either with this election or soon.  There's a huge rift forming, and I don't think the smart ones want to be associated with the crazies any longer.

I wonder if the thinking that candidates were not conservative enough began as just one alternative to the establishment. Now, we have a guy (Trump) who may be ultra-conservative regarding national defense but is obviously not a Christian-right guy - even though he may try to sell himself as one. It looks like they're searching for something non-establishment - no matter what it is. That tells me that the party as-is is not viable and needs to change.

[Minimalist]

Trump is off-the-charts Dunning-Kruger. And the rubes eat it up because the media has, for whatever reason, decided to go along with his bullshit and crassness and racism and rampant stupidity.

You mean you haven't figured that out?  Let Trevor Noah explain it for you.  This is, coincidentally, from last night's show.  Includes video.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/da...oah-877273

[Jackalope]

Trump is off-the-charts Dunning-Kruger. And the rubes eat it up because the media has, for whatever reason, decided to go along with his bullshit and crassness and racism and rampant stupidity.

You mean you haven't figured that out?  Let Trevor Noah explain it for you.  This is, coincidentally, from last night's show.  Includes video.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/da...oah-877273

TL;DR version - it's about the money.

[Rhondazvous]

This political talk is too confusing.

That's the way it's supposed to be so that if you point out something stupid they said they can say no I didn't mean it that way.

So what's the difference between a politician and a theist?

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Tell me and we'll both know.

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[Minimalist]

TL;DR version - it's about the money.

Yes...but that's not as funny as Trevor's take on it.

[RobbyPants]

Are we being bamboozled?

I'm kinda discombobulated here. Everybody acts like Trump is a big maverick who’s going against the party grain. You got everybody from Glenn Beck to Mitt Romney attacking him. But something ain’t right. If the repugnants hate him so bad why is he getting so many delegates?  What is a delegate and how can you get delegates if you don’t have party support?

Realize that every state gets to set up how it wants to handle its primaries, and these rules can change from election to election. A lot of states made changes after 2012 to reflect the primary with Mitt Romney. Back in 2012, Romney had a lot of opposition from somewhat insurgent opponents. This bothered the GOP, and they wanted a more clean primary that favored the front-runner. So, you'd get stuff like winner-take-all states and things like states that would award delegates to the front-runner if their candidate didn't get 20% of the vote.

Fast forward four years when their front runner is the insurgent, who is running against many opponents. As much as they may hate it, they're handing Trump delegates from a process that was specifically designed to give more weight to the most popular candidate.

Expect to see some fiddly, weird rules before the 2020 primaries to try and address this issue.

[vorlon13]

Didn't it occur to anyone trotting out Mitt Romney, the FUCKING LOSER from the last election, that to exhort the Trumpites to repent of their heresy and fall in line with the party poobahs, is precisely the sort of attitude the Trumpites are sick and fucking tired of ??

Hell, even the evangelicals are ready to throw Jesus under the bus to get Trump, despite his crowing about about ADULTERY, why would the party hierarchy think they are going to be able to control, this movement with a business as usual attitude ??

They're in a new game, new rules and strategies and playbooks now.

Suppose Hillary has noticed? Dem party is administered and organized probably not too dissimilarly from the 'Pubs, the electorate is increasingly in an ugly mood, might want to be rethinking everything that has the taint of having been done before.

[Mister Agenda]

A house divided cannot stand and all that. You've got a quarter of the GOP that's establishment, and at least a quarter that is vehemently anti-establishment. In the middle are probably mostly the younger libertarian-leaning Republicans who are soft on social issues (for conservatives) who are sort of 'waiting their turn' to run things more to their liking.

I've been thinking the GOP is heading for a crack up for a long time. I expect to see a lot of conservative voters defecting to the Democrats or 3rd Party candidates for this election. Maybe enough to offset the 'my favorite or I'm going to stay home' factions among the Democrats.

What's that saying? Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love?