Trump for president?

British newspapers assume the US system works like the British system, where, in each district, the candidate with a plurality wins, and the party that wins the majority of MPs becomes the governing party. But the US system is much more complicated. And so it is not at all clear whether Trump is or is not on track to win the nomination.

In some states, all delegates go to whomever has the plurality. In others, one needs a majority to win all the delegates, with delegates awarded to all those who get a significant percentage of votes.

Trump's support has a floor of at least 30%, and what looks like a ceiling of about 40%. But, with just 35% of the votes in the first four contests, Trump won 64% of all the delegates assigned.

After Super Tuesday, Trump had just 46% of the assigned delegates, and now he has just 44%.

But, on 15 March, two big states will assign all their delegates to whichever candidate has the plurality, so Trump could win both, and, with the votes he's sure to pick up  in the rest of the states, he'll have enough delegates to almost guarantee a majority at the convention and the nomination.

Of course, he could lose both, in which case he'll have a very hard time getting that majority. Without a majority of the delegates, he can't win the nomination.

But the most likely result on the 15^th is that Trump will win one and lose one, and his nomination will still be very much up in the air, which is, of course, what all the news media are hoping for, since a continuing contest will sell more page views.

Meanwhile, all the US newspapers are terrified that Trump will actually win. Their columnists say that Trump will definitely start a war that the US cannot win, so no one should be dumb enough to vote for Trump.

This in spite of the fact that Trump is one of the least hawkish candidates (Rand Paul was the most anti-war candidate, with Trump and Senator Sanders tied for second-least hawkish). But US newspapers stopped writing the truth after their unpatriotic truth-telling lost the Vietnam War. By writing that the war was unwinnable and stupid (just because it was), the US news media convinced voters to elect Congresscritters who voted to withdraw. Had the US news media continued to write patriotically that victory was very close, and only a little more effort would prevent a Communist take-over of the US, voters would have elected Congresscritters who insisted the president continue to prosecute the Vietnam War, and US troops would still be in Saigon to this day.

Fortunately, the US media all report that Bush, jr did a great job turning Iraq from a terrible tyranny into a peaceful and prosperous Democracy, and Obama did a similarly great job for Libya. And the US news media are all waiting for President Clinton to bring that same peace and prosperity and freedom and Democracy to Syria, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China!