Goldwater’s loss was Trump’s win

So, on final review of the 2016 election. Trump’s victory was historic in one significant way.

Just as his moderate Republicans abandoned and attacked him, like Eisenhower and others did Goldwater at the ‘64 Convention, Trump managed to win the election; where Goldwater failed spectacularly, carrying just Arizona - and only just!

Why?

Goldwater had all the same fringe groups and terms Trump did, hanging around his neck like albatrosses, in addition to “the Russians,” yet he pulled off the win. Goldwater’s Putin was the Russian emigre and arch-conservative, Ayn Rand, which couldn’t have helped his image, either. So what changed the outcome?

Trump must have seen Goldwater get timid and come back to the middle, and decided that he had two decisive advantages Goldwater didn’t in that era - then an even more racist, segregationist, anti-communist America. Those were his airplane and his tireless bullhorn Twitter feed. These kept his deplorables activated throughout.

I would say that Johnson carried a lot of sympathy vote over from JFK’s death, and he had more vitality than HRC overall.

In the end, I think 2016 was a lot more like 1964 than we give it credit for, but just with a different result.