Tracks with my impression that Masters supporters will be significantly more motivated to get out, given his "extreme" views. Looks like this is CNN's first poll in the race.
Is Masters’ inspiring? I get the impression that he really only excites the online right. He’s extreme, but in a unique way that doesn’t resonate with the generic Trumpy exurban foot soldier.
I might be biased though. I dislike Masters more than basically any GOP candidate. It does feel like he’s trying to dupe people into thinking he’s a conservative family man when he really wants to enter the Senate and promote his Thielite techno-fascist fixations.
Masters takes a hard line on immigration and crime; I have no idea why anyone would think this is something that appeals only to the "online right." Obviously, his style is rooted there, but style isn't what won him the nomination. Maybe this forum misses bronz more than I realized.
The ideological basis for a position does influence resonance IMO. Trumpian opposition to immigration and crime stemmed from a more innate nativism, where it felt like Trump was channeling the “heart” of the base on the issue. Masters is certainly coming from a more erudite position where his opposition to immigration has a formal ideological basis, derived from a conception of how he thinks society should function.
Maybe that didn’t make too much sense, but I think Trump was so good at capturing the base because Trump thinks like an uneducated person. Trump is just against immigration because he is; there’s no grand theory of Trumpism underlying it. While Masters does have that underlying grand theory. But a normal person doesn’t have a theory, they are just against immigration because they are.
