– ‘Walk off the gangplank’ for Trump? –
Trump, the man hogging the headlines, is a billionaire who has never held public office and is widely ridiculed by critics as a bigoted, clownish blowhard.
His party is described as cringing over the prospect that he will actually win the Republican nomination, which for his critics borders on handing over the election to the Democrats on a silver platter.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders, a little known senator from a small state that many Americans could perhaps not find on a map – Vermont – is doing surprisingly well.
The core of his pitch is to heal what he says is a system sick with economic inequality and dominated by a political and financial elite.
Sanders is giving Hillary Clinton – the 68-year-old former first lady and secretary of state who had been considered a shoo-in to win the nomination and perhaps go on to make history as the nation’s first female president – a good run for her money.
Beyond the economy, on both sides of American politics but particularly in the Trump camp, there is disquiet about the changing face of American culture, amid changes like gay marriage, Beck said.
Among Trump’s supporters, some are so disgusted with the establishment they are willing to vote for him even while believing that he is not electable.
“On the Republican side, a third of the base is willing to kind of walk off the gangplank and vote for Trump,” Beck said.
Ditto for the 74-year-old Sanders.
Clinton gets much higher marks for electability than he does, but many Sanders soldiers are so fed up with things as they are and delighted with his message of renewal that it doesn’t matter for them if their vote in the primaries is wasted.
“There are a lot of people who are supporting Sanders who really don’t care whether he can win in November,” Beck said.
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