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Trump party supporters will stick with him. There are quite a few of them, and their numbers are growing. In Tuesday’s five primaries he defeated his remaining rivals by some of the biggest margins yet, despite desperate machinations by the Cruz and Kasich camps to slow his momentum. Naturally he immediately boasted about it: “This is a lot bigger win than we would have expected. All five,” he crowed. Noting that in some states he attracted 60 percent of the vote, he pronounced: “When you crack 60, with three people, that’s very hard to do. . . . That’s called a massive landslide.”

Trump party supporters evidently like that mix of vanity, arrogance and bumptiousness. They aren’t bothered by his ongoing insults, or his evident willingness to alienate that portion of the population who aren’t white males. After his “massive landslide” Tuesday he took another shot at Hillary Clinton, not over her policies but because she’s a woman.

“The only card she has is the woman’s card; she’s got nothing else going,” he said. “And frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she’s got going is the women’s card. And the beautiful thing is, women don’t like her. And look how well I did with women tonight!”

The remarks probably went over well with Trump party supporters, but gave most women another reason not to vote for him.

If Trump party supporters are loving it, however, traditional Republicans are faced with a dilemma. Trump has gobbled up that portion of the party that thinks Hooters is fine dining and still believes Obama was born in Kenya. But that excludes millions of Americans who have never voted Democrat in their lives, yet would be embarrassed to have anyone think they identify with Donald Trump. They’re mortified at the ignorance he displays, they’re fearful at the chaos he could create, they worry about the disdain a Trump presidency would bring down on America, and the damage U.S. prestige would suffer from choosing to put their country in the hands of a buffoonish carnival barker/real estate pitchman.

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They’re not yahoos themselves, and don’t want a yahoo for president. They certainly wouldn’t want to be blamed for putting a yahoo like Trump in the White House.

So who do they vote for? It would be difficult, for those who have voted Republican all their lives, to support Hillary Clinton. A lot of them will probably just have to stay home, and hope the party can survive what it’s done to itself.

National Post

KellyMcParland<