U.S. Presidential Elections: Is Donald Trump likely to win the 2016 election?

There is a big possibility [1] that Trump will win the 2016 election and he may become the 45th president of United States. If this surprises you, please note that smart people did not think that Ronald Reagan [2] would become the President.
Here are the reasons why this could become a possibility (70% probability right now).

Emergence Versus Planning - Donald Trump as well as a Bernie Sanders are candidates who getting traction with people while emerging naturally (unconsciously). In entrepreneurship, emerged ideas and emerged companies have a better chance of success than the ones that are consciously created. Likewise, there is a pretty good chance that Bernie or Donald will most likely generate escape velocity and create significant stickiness with the public. Unless of course, either of these candidates unconsciously torpedoes their gains. By the time other candidates realize what has happened, it will be too late.

Bandwidth Stealing - Trump is known for making controversial remarks and while Trump may lose due to these remarks, another possibility can occur. When people hate you, they are still connected with you and are sharing a portion of their mental and emotional bandwidth with you. Eventually, a strategic person may be able to convert the hate to love using a well crafted strategy. "I hate you" is end of the same spectrum while "I love you to Bits" is another end of the same spectrum.

Convergence post Divergence - True Convergence occurs only once divergence has run its course. A solution or a direction emerges from the divergence eventually. Trump may be leading people to convergence by stirring up discussions on controversial topics by steering clear of being politically correct. Notice that Trump uses the "hot/cold" approach where he throws a spanner in the works, waits for the stirred up discussion to settle down, goes quiet for few days and then plays the same cycle again. People will soon get addicted to this cycle and start noticing what Trump is saying.

Tricky Semantics - Politicians say a lot of things, then quickly turn around and reframe their communications. If they do this well, they can convince the populace that they really didn't' really mean what they were saying initially. The populace understands that campaigning politicians non-intelligently use the freedom of speech and is quick to forgive indiscretions.

Anti-Women Bias - Trump unconsciously attacked Megyn Kelly and if the perception strengthens that Trump is against women as a segment itself, things may go bad for him in this space where candidates have a no-go zone. On the other hand, if people start dissecting Megyn Kelly's triggers which lead Trump to attack her and rationalize those triggers as Megyn's fault, then a collective opinion of Trump as anti-women will collapse. Trump carefully picked Carly Fiona and Megyn who come with some baggage and I believe Trump has already won this battle

Journey from a Bully to a presidential candidate - My prediction is that Trump will sound more and more presidential as he gets closer to the campaign after playing out the bully image who makes xenophobic comments. That will be a game changer for him as he may effectively lead other candidates by miles in a short span. This sudden shift in projected persona will confuse the populace and combine with bandwidth stealing, Trump's campaign will reach an inflection point. Of course, he is not going to follow through with xenophobic policies, if/once he gets elected.

Trend of Contrasting Personalities - David Axelrod, Chief Strategist of Obama's campaign (in 2008) has a theory [3] that in american politics, incumbent presidents are replaced by incoming presidents who are polar opposites in personality. The careful and aloof G.W Bush (Sr) was replaced by the charismatic, connectable Bill Clinton. Then came George Bush who was goofy and a gullible puppet in the hands of his cunning advisors. Then came Obama, an overcautious, bayesian follower and an insular/introverted president who never let others read his mind. Here is Trump who is polar opposite, vocal, loud and others can read his mind by his words before even he even thinks.

Bold Leaders & Elevator Pitches - Americans love bold leaders who can give great speeches, thump the table, use rhetoric in their engagements and clearly outline direct and brute force path to achieving something. Most of the populace is missing that pattern in President Obama. Trump has a following of people who are fascinated by brute force project plans. Trump provides them carte blanche' loud and brute force solutions to almost everything such as immigration which is a hot issue right now. During campaigning, people are not thinking about future problems that may be created due sub-optimal brute force plans (Iraq war as an example), they just want to hear loud and sexy solutions (any solutions).

Selling to Pain - Trump is using a time tested strategy to market to his early adopters i.e Americans who feel a loss of pride due to the relegation of United States on the world forum. The pain is a consistent sense of loss of influence and pride and Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan effectively sell to the pain of the bruised early adopters. Never underestimate the power early adopters wield over the populace. They start as a minority and can make a concept/idea/person viral that everyone else was ignoring.

**Note - I do not support Donald Trump or his policies. Predicting a win for a candidate is not the same thing as supporting them.
Recent research has indicated that smart people do not forecast future events with high accuracy. The researcher [1] who contributed to the above research himself missed to predict that Trump could rise and emerge. As of writing this post, these election pundits are still clearing the unexpected snow from their backyard.

https://www.quora.com/U-S-Presidential-Elections/Is-Donald-Trump-likely-to-win-the-2016-election

There are some interesting comments and rebuttals on there if you scroll down

The same arguments were flown in 1964, with the emergence of the conservative movement and Barry Goldwater.  What happened was the Republicans got trounced, and a new movement within the party was born.

There are two things implicit in the campaigns: 1) there is unrest in the voting population; and 2) there is dissatisfaction with the political status quo.  These two factors mean there is unrest in and among the voters, bringing out new and heretofore a-political factors.  People who didn't vote before are pissed about something.  But what?

The answer seems to be with the status quo in Washington.  What is that status quo?  What is pissing the voters off is the 6-year program of Republicans to stall and obstruct government as long as a black president is in office.  This is quite consistent with the Republican southern strategy, which was the natural outgrowth of the efforts of Republican strategist, Lee Atwater.

http://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/  

Republicans are so incensed by a black man in the White House that they have developed the McConnell-Boehner doctrine: do everything hurtful to the nation as long as a black president is in office.  That way, one can float the myth that such president was ineffectual and a failure...consistent with myths about black people generally.

The voting public is being short-changed by this effort.  To their credit, they don't buy the racial twist, but they do see the dysfunction.  They see the counter-productivity of the Republican Party.  This has resulted in a twofold response: 1) Republicans want to oust the establishment Republicans; and 2) the general population of voters want to oust the Republicans.  These two impulses have brought out the new voters, each of their own ilk.

The news pundits have failed to distinguish the two.  They see it as a single, undifferentiated movement.  It will only become apparent what is happening when we get past the primaries and on to the general election.  Then we will see a non-establishment Republican (Trump) pitted against an establishment Democrat (Hillary), with the result that Hillary trounces Trump.

Why?  What did the pundits miss?  They misread the voters.  There are two forms of dissension going on, one within the Republican Party, and the other within the general voting population altogether.  

The Republican dissension will result in a revolution within the Republican Party, but then the overall dissension will result in the ouster of the Republican Party completely.  

In other words, think of two waves at the seashore, a bigger one overcoming the smaller one from behind.  Both are complete turnovers, but the much bigger one will render the lesser one irrelevant.

Trump will get in cus the people want some action on migration

Stormee wrote:Trump will get in cus the people want some action on migration

I bet he will lose by a bigger landslide than Goldwater. When he gets into deeper water, most of the water molecules are against him.