Trump Dump

Trump hit the magic number of pledged delegates yesterdayish, yes there was no primary as such, but Philadelphia's unbound delegates declared their choices and enough of them picked Trump that he officially has over 1237 delegates and barring shenanigans, will be the Republican nominee for president.
What shenanigans are possible at this point? Not many that allow the GOP to retain any credibility in the eyes of the voters, it basically comes down to the rules committee and if they choose to change something that unbinds delegates, or that increases the threshold for being the nominee I guess.
There is a better than zero chance of that, Cruz packed a lot of his supporters into the various delegations and may have some form of chance, but honestly we are in for another summer of Trump, this time with him running the entire convention, including apparently wanting to speak each day.

My thoughts now turn to the general election, with a Trump/Clinton contest unless something magical happens with Sanders in California and with the Superdelegates, again, not impossible, but pretty unlikely I think. Clinton could get indicted too I guess, that might give him an edge and scare the Superdelegates to Sanders, maybe.

Sanders may or may not be debating Trump in a week or so, apparently first Trump agreed, then he said no, then he said he was joking, currently I think the story is he'll do it if the networks donate a shitload of money to a charity or something. I feel like this was a dumb series of decisions for the Trump campaign, and a sign of Sanders beginning to transition into an attack dog for Clinton. A debate with someone who is unlikely to win has no upside for Trump, and Sanders isn't going to tell anyone anything new about the man either, it's an opportunity to make hay about Trump's terribly strange decision making process, and get some sick insults in if he defies logic and sanity and decides to actually go through with it.

Meanwhile Trump is fighting with another likely future female presidential candidate, this one rather more liberal than Clinton, Elizabeth Warren has decided to spend a few minutes a day on Twitter making fun of the man, I approve of her tactics as they really do seem to be getting under his skin, and his counters are... not really going to win him any points with just about anyone, referring to her as Pocahontas and so on. It's unlikely to make him friends in the general election, but I don't think he really grasps that he has to try to appeal to the entire country now, not just the idiot racists and accelerationists that support him now.

Protesters got a little rowdy apparently the other day in New Mexico at one of his rallies, I know people say that out of hand protests play right into his hands, but I don't see it, the racist label has been pretty well stamped on his campaign, and every time we see riot police literally riding down black protesters at a Trump rally it gets a bit harder to peel off, regardless of what they did to deserve it, which it turns out amounts to strong language, a couple rocks, and a punch or two, so less violent than your average soccer game.

Trump has a huge problem being nice to anyone, so far it really hasn't hurt him because his supporters are terrible people who hate everything, but he's gotta start making friends other than Ben Carson and Chris Christie, the latter of whom is visibly fighting the enchantment he is under and wasting away as a result, well, comparatively anyway. He spent a chunk of his last rallies attacking people like Mitt Romney and the governor of New Mexico Susana Martinez, a person who, if he really wants to appeal to the conservative Hispanic vote, would be an indispensable ally but that is not apparently the case, and she isn't really having it either, having states she won't support him and may not even attend the RNC.

Also he talked about the Republican party of the future being "The workers party". Which amused the hell out of me, though his supporters won't know the reference he accidentally made so whatever.

The above, along with so many other things just in the last week, should sink any politician forever, but this election is different and so is the candidate, I don't see him winning, or even really coming close with electoral college votes, but I think it's gonna be a campaign until the end anyway and it is anyone's guess what he does next. I am interested and wary, but I don't feel panic at the moment, which is nice.