Ruling on horseback

 "You can conquer a country on horseback but you cannot rule a country on horseback." Old Chinese saying.

Trump thinks that he can be the President of 318 million people based on the fact that he manage to win the Republican primary. In theory, this is possible, Trump just needs to get enough voters to vote in the appropriate electoral colleges and he will make it as the next 45th President of US of A.

I am sure he has more or less gotten the white supremacy voters. Clinton is not likely to contest that voter bloc with him. But what about everybody else? And that problem can be seen by the speakers present in the RNC. There were 5 black speakers. One was Ben Carson, a political rival who has switched his support to Trump. There were 2 black ministers who are not exactly well known. There was a senatorial candidate. The last person was a sheriff who is a regular on Fox News. But I guess there is no need to cater for the African Americans since only 18 African Americans delegates turned up.

What about Hispanic speakers? There was a State Senator from Kentucky. If you count Ted Cruz as Hispanic, you also have to remember his "vote your conscience" speech. Marco Rubio sent in a filmed speech. The crowd started waving "make borders safe" signs when Spanish was spoken from the podium so I guess it is was a safe choice by the Hispanic GOP members to skip the convention. There were no exact number of Hispanic delegates although it is estimated to be 133 which is a drop from the previous years.  

There is still 50% of the electorate that the GOP could speak to. The GOP invited 24 female speakers. The Trump family female members were very well represented. His two daughter and current wife spoke in the RNC. 3 of the other female speakers worked under Trump. In total, one quarter of the female speakers had direct or indirect ties to Trump. 5 of the female speakers were GOP politicians. There were also a few minor celebrities that hardly anyone knew of. That is including a current wife of the a former speaker of the house. We should not be surprised that significant women speakers are missing in the RNC as the only women related policy that GOP champions is anti abortion.    

Now Trump is trying to pivot to get new bloc of voters and find it very difficult. Even in the case of the flood crisis Louisiana, Trump was not able to get much traction. When Trump slammed his political rivals about Louisiana, it appeared more of a case of opportunism than care for the people affected by the floods. The other thing that Trump quickly realized was that a truck load of supplies does not even dent a state level disaster. (I have worked with Army logistics people and I know that supplying a small army unit take more than a few trucks.) Trump's Louisiana efforts bought him a few seconds of air time. This is logical as Trump is not Jimmy Carter who had devoted his life to serving others. Jimmy Carter would have continued on a project long after it has lost the public's attention.

Trump has proven that it is possible to win a war by being ruthless. Now he has the hard part of rebuilding a coalition with the survivors.

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