Campaign 2016 (The Disarray)

Gandhi counseled his people that "First they will ignore you; then they will laugh at you; then they will fight you; then you will win!"

So far that has been how the Republican Party elite and the media have treated Republican front-runner Donald J. Trump. We will see if Gandhi's quote applies in his case.

My wife and I sponsor two French college students studying to obtain their bachelor degrees here in America. The one studying International Relations is currently taking a course in American politics.

When he read Governor Romney's scathing attack on Mr. Trump, he commented that he thought that Americans believed that every vote counts and that voters who vote for their preferred candidate were supposed to be respected for exercising their role in a democratic process, rather than have their judgement publicly ridiculed by an elite such as Romney!

There is disarray in the Republican Party that the ignoring, and the ridiculing, and now the fighting is unlikely to resolve.

10% of voters who have voted for Mr. Trump have voted for the first time in the last 10 years. He has activated a dormant part of the Republican Party. He is also drawing in new members. Those previously inactive voters are now making a difference in the Trump campaign. They think that this time around maybe their votes can make a difference.

If those reactivated and new Republicans get the cold shoulder from Republican Party elite such as Governor Romney and others who want their party to go into a brokered convention next July in Cleveland and choose a party insider such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Ohio Governor John Kasich, or even the same Governor Romney who failed to defeat President Obama in the 2012 election, will they have done themselves the very real damage they claim Mr. Trump is doing to the party?

And What Of Disarray Among Democrats?

As for the Democrats, active young Democrats were the key to President Obama's two victories. By and large they are now supporting Senator Bernie Sanders over "insider" Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton was part of the "do-nothing Congress" even when the Democrats controlled the government in President Obama's first term. She drags with her the sensitive emails and the emails she destroyed as "personal," as well as the growing image that she is above the law.

Can the Democrats afford to champion a flawed candidate at the expense of the young Democrats now rallying around the "revolution" Senator Sanders is offering them?

What to watch going forward:

Already Mrs. Clinton is shifting several of her positions to try to clinch her party's nomination.

Already Mr. Trump is moderating his bombast somewhat in an attempt to better unify Republicans and show that former President Jimmy Carter was right in saying that Trump is malleable, whereas Cruz is not.

In both cases, the weaknesses and the warts are showing. The voters are speaking, and it is just possible that the stakes for both major parties are clearer as the real fighting gets underway.

Come convention times we will all be able to see just how the two parties manage voter desires and voter anger in what is supposed to be a democratic process to select America's next president.

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© 2016 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.