Why are so many people scared of Donald Trump specifically, rather than Republicans in general?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

We've known for decades that in 2016 there was going to be a Republican nominee for president, that they were almost certainly going to be breathtakingly far right, and that they might well win.

Now the Republicans are on the verge of nominating a candidate who by most measures is less far right and less likely to win than was expected, and suddenly people are freaking out.

Yes, the prospect of Donald Trump becoming president is scary, and the odds against it are not that long. But it's less scary, and less likely, than a candidate Rubio or a candidate Cruz would have been, and it was inevitable all along that the Republicans would pick somebody.

[gcomeau]

1. Because of concerted decades long efforts...

....to redefine "right" as "center" in US politics. So crazily far right now becomes "oh, they're just on the right" and center-right becomes left.


(And sane center-left becomes "OMG Sanders is a Communist".)


Voila. How we get the candidates we do without the country having a nervous breakdown at how bad things are. Although Trump pushed the envelope.


And we keep going along with it.

[Autumn]

2. He really is the least scary among them Trump's an idiot the others, Cruz and Kasich

are just out and out fucking evil and dangerous.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

3. You can add to this that a President Trump would be blocked by both parties

He'd give Dems coverage because Rs will be blocking him, too.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. For me

it's knowing that somebody like Trump is closer to being elected POTUS than anybody like him *should* be, most likely because he's somewhat of a celebrity. I don't think that it's highly likely that he will win in the GE (if he doesn't blow it completely for the Republicans) but the fact that somebody like him has gotten this far in the primary process is sort of scary and shows how much the Republican base has devolved but I guess that after Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, somebody like Trump is the natural regression. I guess that I'm glad to some degree that they aren't nominating somebody whom could possibly come across as more "moderate" and acceptable in a GE like Bush or Kasich but still.

[Hayabusa]

5. Republicans do scare me

but Trump scares me far worse.