Trump Issues Fresh Anti-GOP Extortion Threats

by JASmius



The thing is, he makes these threats sound like they're somehow bad things:

“There’d be a major collapse of the race, and there’d be a major collapse of television ratings,” he said from his office in Trump Tower. “It would become a depression in television.”

Does this not pretty explicitly illustrate my assertion that the Trump campaign is simply Celebrity Apprentice taken on the road?  It feeds the notion that this is about nothing but his ego, not a serious candidacy, and once it stops being "fun" he'll rapidly lose interest.

I, of course, think it's about a lot more than that, but that factor is certainly present.

Mr. Trump said that a presidential campaign without him would become so “boring” that he would struggle to pay any attention to it.

“I wouldn’t even be watching it probably, and neither would anybody else,” he said.

But you know what, folks?  Yes, presidential campaigns ARE supposed to be "boring".  They're not supposed to be "reality TV," they're not supposed to be a political version of Survivor or American Idol.  It's supposed to be serious business, for candidates, campaigns, and voters.  Which, of course, it hasn't been since 2008, which, in turn, does much to explain why the country is in the pathetic, dilapidated, imperiled shape it's in today.  Donald Trump is simply an extension of that disastrous trend, and his exit would make possible its reversal.

This may reflect the fact that Trump's numbers have begun to seriously erode:

Ben Carson and Donald Trump are tied among GOP voters in Pennsylvania, a new poll finds.

Carson and Trump each receive 18% support from registered Republicans in the Keystone State, according to the Mercyhurst University Center for Applied Politics poll on Monday…

Mercyhurst’s poll also found that Carson is the best-liked GOP presidential candidate among Pennsylvania Republicans.

And not just in Pennsylvania.  Trump now trails Ben Carson by seven points nationally, according to Investors Business Daily.  He's also sliding in the early caucus/primary States.  A heartening indication that summer flings are still summer flings, and as more voters start paying attention to the race, they are dismissing Hairboy as a serious candidate, and even as a bad entertainer.

Not that he's going to get out anytime soon.  But it does sound as if he's beginning to lay the groundwork for it, as well as the independent general election spoiler run as Hillary Clinton's (or Joe Biden's or Bernie Sanders') stalking horse.  Turns out I was right about this after all, if two and a half months off in my timing.