May 19, 2016: The media is in a code-blue panic. The establishment, of which the media is a lushly funded appendage, is witnessing the steady deflation of public support and approval for the establishment’s presumptive figurehead and aspiring presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. A national poll of registered voters, conducted by Fox News, for the first time places Donald Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton, at 45% versus 42%, with a margin of error of 3%.

This is just one poll, so confirmation of this shift in public opinion awaits polling by other organizations. But, Fox News polling has usually been comparable to that of other organizations. All polls show Bernie Sanders decisively ahead of Donald Trump, nationally and in “battleground” states. Hillary Clinton is decisively behind Donald Trump in those battleground states.

Hillary Clinton has NEVER had an increase of popularity during the course of any of her campaigns. She has entered her races with a high percentage of voter support/interest, and steadily lost it till the election, whether the final result was a victory or a defeat for her. In April, the Fox News poll showed Trump at 41% and Hillary Clinton at 48%. So in one month, Hillary went from a 7% lead over Trump to a 3% lag behind him; her support (by poll) dropped 6% while Trump’s increased by 4%. This represents a shift in voter opinion by 10% of the electorate (as determined by polling).

The party conventions are in 2 months, and the general election is in 5 months. The escalation of bad behavior by the Clinton campaign (as in Nevada) and the careerists in the Democratic Party (which is, after all, a Clinton machine fronting corporate money and control) only ensures that a larger and significant portion of Bernie Sanders people will abandon the Democrats after July if Bernie is not the presidential nominee (and not the VP nominee, and regardless of hollow promises to include the Sanders agenda in a party platform that a President H. Clinton would completely ignore).

The reason for Bernie’s superior popularity is that a wide spectrum of people resonate with his agenda, that is what they are voting for, not merely a personality (though certainly an appealing one), or a party label. In contrast, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is entirely a cult of personality without any intellectual, policy, and emotional substance beyond Democratic Party brand loyalty. Bernie Sanders supporters are following an agenda, a revolutionary movement, and they will stay with that movement without being restrained and corralled by party labels. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is only about Hillary Clinton, and that drastically narrows its appeal.

As the electorate looks more closely at Hillary Clinton, they like what they see less and less. So, if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, she will absolutely need Sanders’ people’s votes in order to defeat Donald Trump. And, she is doing the most effective job possible of alienating those voters. I think the rift is irreparable at this point. (I know I’m done with Hillary people for good and all.) It’s almost as if the Democratic Party has a death wish by sticking with her; or perhaps their massive cognitive dissonance arises from simple hubris; or maybe they’re just all blackmailed. It is probably as Upton Sinclair observed:

“It is difficult to get a person to understand something, when their salary depends on their not understanding it.”

(The Sinclair quotation was edited for gender neutrality. Sinclair’s original: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”)

Trump has many flaws and liabilities, and the combination of his acting stupidly and also suffering political attacks from his opposition might cause him to lose support in coming months, and perhaps ultimately lose the presidential race. But, if Hillary’s characteristic fading of support continues without reversal, and Trump’s support does not fade, then Hillary might be unelectable even with the votes of all the Bernie people. And in reality that Hillary dream, of hijacking the Bernie Sanders revolution, will never happen.

Because Hillary is running a personality-based campaign (“It’s all about me”) her opposition to other candidates is personal, she prefers to attack their personalities directly or by innuendo instead of getting bogged down in debates about policy differences (Sanders thwarts her the most in this regard). Her policy arguments have been erratic and vague because in reality she has no policy beyond influence peddling to establishment high finance. She is asking voters to choose her personality as superior (“more popular”) than that of Sanders and especially Trump, who is painted as the ultimate bogey man she must be elected to save America from: “Be afraid (don’t think!), elect Hillary.”

However, Bernie people actually do think, and thinking is the most effective antidote to fear. They are voting for national reform (rooting out political corruption) and national renewal (public investment in the American people for universally inclusive social and economic benefit to the American people). Stated negatively, they are voting against corporations and their corruption of the political system by money. The face of that corporate-funded political corruption is Hillary Clinton. More Bernie people than the establishment can imagine are now immune to Trump-fear, they are not going to be diverted from their revolution to save Hillary. It’s code-blue time for establishment politics.

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The poll that might scare Clinton supporters (18 May 2016)
Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton 45% to 42% in a new national poll…a statistical tie. Historically, that has not boded well for Clinton. Can she turn her numbers around? Lawrence discusses with Michael Steele, Peter Wehner, and Geoff Garin.
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/the-poll-that-might-scare-clinton-supporters-688508995933