Krugman: Too late for many republicans to give up on Trump. Why? Embarrassment.

The Donald and the Chump Factor

I suppose there are still some people waiting for Trump’s bubble to burst — any day now! But it keeps not happening. And it’s becoming increasingly plausible that he will go all the way. Why? One answer — probably the most important — is what Greg Sargent has been emphasizing: the majority of Republican voters actually support Trump’s policy positions. After all, he’s just saying outright what mainstream candidates have implied through innuendo; how are voters supposed to know that this isn’t what you do?

I would, however, add a casual observation: at this point Trump has been the front-runner for long enough that it’s very hard to imagine his supporters suddenly losing faith, because it would be too embarrassing.

Now think about someone who has been supporting Trump since the summer. For the Trump bubble to burst, many people like that would have to slap their foreheads and say, “Wow, he’s not a serious person! What was I thinking?”

And very few people ever do that sort of thing. Someone who has spent months supporting Trump despite establishment denunciations — which means something like a third of Republicans — will go to great lengths to avoid conceding that he has been foolish. At this point such people will insist that any negative reports about Trump are the product of hostile mainstream media; Trump’s very durability so far is likely to make him highly resilient looking forward.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/the-donald-and-the-chump-factor/?_r=0

How many republicans will stick with Trump just because it is too embarrassing to drop him after months of support. In 2008 and 2012 it seemed that a different republican candidate would surge ahead then get dropped by voters in a matter of weeks. Now that people have supported Trump for months, they may be more reluctant to drop him than if he were just the 'flavor of the month' for a few weeks.