Presidential Candidate Donald Trump / Photo Credit ABC News
A last minute wave of early voters have come to the polls against Donald Trump in sudden support for Hillary Clinton before election day that may block the incendiary GOP's candidate's hopes of attaining the Presidential office.
A surge of Hispanic, African American and women voters have cast their ballots early. A democratic push just in Clarke County, Nevada, had more than 57,000 voters organized from culinary union local 226, casting their ballots on their final day, to make a new record. Hispanic voter turnout in Florida is up 103% from last year which has helped tip the early voting ballots for that entire state in the favor of Democrats. A recent national poll of African American voters showed 90% of women stated they were coming out to vote compared to 82% of the men. And in Ohio early voting shows Hillary at 48%, Trump at 41%. With early voting Women at 57%, and at Men 43%.
The question is does this last minute swell of early voters in minority demographics indicate the pulse of the nation tomorrow on election day? Statisticians already have the vote projection tipping in the battleground states of Nevada and Florida, as well as North Carolina for Hillary Clinton. And the Democratic candidate leads in varying national polls from 3 to 7 percent.
Trump, the provocative and inflammatory candidate, notorious for abusive and shocking rhetoric on the campaign trail, has already gone down in history as a polarizing figure breaking new ground in normalizing hate speech as well as making threats and accusations embedded in campaign promises.
"I'm building a wall," became a famous catch phrase for the candidate who promised to build a 2000 mile wall twenty feet high (though sometimes he's said as high as 55 feet) along the southern border of the United States to stop illegal immigration (though he has re-adjusted that to 1000 miles due to natural land barriers), "Mexico will pay for it," became his famous tag line to his pledge. He promised to keep out the worst that Mexico had to send us on the day he announced his candidacy, "When Mexico sends their people they're not sending their best...they're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists..." This even though statistically illegal immigration is down even as Trump claimed it was up.
Though no actual wall building plan has ever been presented by the Trump campaign on the cost, materials required or labor force organized, housed and maintained for the process of building such a structure that would equal 33 empire state buildings or 51 Hoover Dams, economists and engineers have roughly estimated the cost between $10 Billion and $25 Billion. (N.A.S.A.'s yearly operating budget is $17 Billion, to give you a sense of scope).
When meeting with Mexican President Peña Nieto in August, Trump famously avoided the topic of the wall in conversations with the press afterwards saying 'we didn't discuss it," disputing the Mexican President's comments and Tweets that they did discuss it and Nieto made it very clear "Mexico will not pay for the wall."
Calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S. became another Trump catch phrase and campaign promise, along with the deporting of 11 million illegal immigrants in America.
Promising a "kind hearted deportation policy," as well as a deportation force to enforce it, this familiar formula of Trump's 'tough talk' is always entangled in how much he admires/likes an item as he is also crucifying it. "He was a war hero because he was captured, I like people who weren't captured," Trump said of Senator John McCain.
Examples of his blaming, bullying, humiliating style was recorded by the New York Times, 282 People Places and Things Donald Trump has Insulted on Twitter, and which are too many to list here. And while it has shocked the nation it has inspired his core supporters.
Twenty four hours before election day finds an electorate exhausted by the media onslaught over the past 18 months promoting Trump with endless free air time and phone-ins on every cable news network, sometimes daily. The candidate rose to power with a blaming and revengeful style that crossed new lines in civil behavior during public presentations. Supporters who felt this 'authentic' talk proved Trump wasn't owned by corporate interests helped him rise in popularity and become the GOP nominee.
At the Republican convention in July seemingly against the wishes of many within his own party, a movement called "NeverTrump, hoping to derail his nomination process, was neutered on the convention floor. Top Republican officials like Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Congressman Jason Chaffetz R-UT, have still not endorsed the Republican candidate and refuse to campaign with him. Other elected Republican officials like Marco Rubio R-FLA and Senator Jeff Sessions R-AL are solidly behind him and actively campaigning for him.
In twenty four hours the Republican candidate will discover if his divisive message has unified a coalition of Americans behind him that can sweep him to the highest office of the most powerful country on Earth, or if his firebrand messages of enmity, hostility and protectionism have divided not just the country, but his own party which shows the wear and tear of deep in-fighting, shock and a numbed despair (Congressman Jason Chaffetz:" "I'm out. I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine.").
The hate groups empowered to come out of the shadows during the rise of Donald Trump's campaign are linked to his failure to repudiate the KKK and White Nationalists who supported his candidacy along the way. The 'mainstreaming' of American hatred may be Trump's lasting legacy after his campaign is over as these groups wrap themselves in support of Trump for legitimacy, while still espousing purity of race ideology, rejection of the Holocaust as fabrication and the inferiority of non-whites as reasons for hostile discourse towards minorities.
As Trump climbed to the top of the political spectrum with his time worn techniques of brash pugilism that have served him well in his confrontational business style, critics feel the fall out from his campaign's toxic oratory has maligned ethnicities and their support is irreparably fading now at the end of his campaign.
The October surprise of Trump on video tape revealing sex crimes he had committed in his own words to Billy Bush on the now famous Access Hollywood video tape that was leaked with Trump on an open microphone saying: "...just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything....grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." Many critics felt this pivotal moment lost Trump a major block of his support on his own side where women were supporting him by a majority to men.
It has recently been reported that his own campaign has taken away access to his own Twitter account, hoping to avoid a new self inflicted headline against himself, like his 3am tweets attacking Alicia Machado, a former beauty queen in his own pageant that Hillary Clinton mentioned as a victim of his abuse in their third and last debate.
"Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an "angel" without checking her past, which is terrible!" was just one of his 2AM tweets.
Upon review her past wasn't terrible at all and in fact Mr. Trump was revealed as cruel to her during her Beauty Queen year and he taunted her relentlessly, calling her "Miss Piggy" and "Miss House Cleaning" behind the scenes as owner of the pageant.
To those who know how level headed one has to be to be trusted with the nuclear codes, not trusting the candidate with his own Twitter account seems like a low bar to hurdle, and as he seems unable to do so does raise eyebrows from his critics.
As his polling numbers dip in the last few days before the election it looks statistically unlikely that Trump will have the majority he needs to build his wall. He has however built a disparate group of minorities as well as women whom he has maligned for the last 12 months and who have come together to build a wall of their own peacefully, without threats or warnings, each with the flick of a lever or the dot of a pen. And it seems like Donald Trump will be the one paying for it.