Trump May Not Win, but He’s Not Going Away

Less than a month before Election Day, most major public polls point to a victory for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She’s been helped most certainly by the volatile and vulgar style of Donald Trump—as well as the surprise revelation of his hot mic moments from a decade ago. One national poll shows Clinton up by double digits, and the former secretary of State leads in most swing states as well. Many prominent Republicans apparently have written off Trump’s chances—a group of former senior Republican National Committee staffers in September called on the group to stop funding his campaign and save money for down-ballot races. As the third debate looms, Trump’s strategies seem more Götterdämmerung than anything else.

Prominent Trump critics on both the right and the left hope that a dramatic defeat will not only end his political career but also bury the Trumpist political philosophy—a mash-up of nationalist foreign policy rhetoric, protectionist economics, seeming calls for greater authoritarianism, and nativism. Some believe that Trump is a lightning strike that can’t be repeated. Republican strategist Rick Wilson suggests that a total Trump defeat could help the GOP revive itself, root out xenophobia, and inoculate the country against the continuing political influence of the showman after November.