In a candid moment in a November 2015 Republican debate, Donald Trump said wages in America are “too high” so he could not support raising the minimum wage. Trump may be appealing to wealthy voters, certainly a candidate can seek that demographic in the primaries. But to those voters who have watched middle class wages shrink over the last 30 years few would support a president who thought their wages were too high to compete globally.

This may be the number one reason why Trump may never be the President, much like the Romney’s 47 percent quote has been attributed to his 2008 loss. Dividing Americans into the “have’s and have not’s” may be fine, but choosing to govern to suppress U.S. wages would destroy the middle class.

Perhaps the second best reason Trump may never reside in the Oval office is his remarkable lack of affinity with the truth. Factcheck recently wrote “In the 12 years of Factcheck’s existence we have never seen his (Trump’s) match. He stands out not only for the sheer number of his factually false claims, but also for his brazen refusals to admit error when proven wrong.”

Politifact awarded Trump its annual “Lie of the year award” and found the statements they tested made by Trump in 2015 to be 1 percent true and 51 percent false or worse than false. Another 14 percent were found to be mostly false.

In December 2015 the New York Times found Trump’s statements reviewed to be false an amazing 76 percent of the time, and truthful 7 percent, numbers only exceeded by Ben Carson.

Do Americans want a president who simply cannot speak truthfully more than 1-7 percent of the time? And perhaps even more dangerous to truth telling, Trump, as noted by Factcheck, refuses to admit his errors.

The “Lie of the Year” from Politifact was awarded for Trump’s assertion that on 9/11 he personally saw thousands and thousands of people in Jersey City, New Jersey rooftops cheering the fall of the Twin Towers. But the story has no supporting evidence from any source and many sources, denied the event entirely. Trump’s reaction? To demand apologies from the media for saying his claim was untrue.

A third reason why Trump may never win the presidency is found in the dull but important arena of demographics. Last week a survey revealed on Breitbart noted that among Independent voters polled Trump had a very high 27 percent negative favorable rating. The polling group then polled only Independent voters who were familiar with Mr. Trump. The result of that polling was a negative 30 percent negative rating. Amazingly, the percentage actually rose.

Democrats, some of who need to vote Republican for a Trump victory, have a negative 68 percent favorable perception, a number double the negatives of several other Republican presidential candidates.

And while the negatives within the Republican party for Trump have decreased recently, fully 34 percent of Republicans would never vote for Trump.

Adding to those troubling demographics, a recent Public Religion Research Institute poll found 80 percent of Hispanic voters view Trump unfavorably.

While any of these concerns could derail a Trump successful campaign, they hardly constitute all of Trump’s potential problems. Alienating Muslims both in America and abroad creates distrust among our Muslim allies in the Middle East as well as the European nations with Muslim populations.

Trump’s inclination to be a misogynist does not help his cause.

The first primary in Iowa happens next Tuesday. Will any voters in Iowa remember this Trump quote: “How stupid are the people of Iowa?”

 

Jim Crawford is a retired educator and political enthusiast living here in the Tri-State.