Chauncey Gardner II.

I've been there for awhile .....

Shrub was an obviously inept idiot and the media said yes! That's what we need! Gore is smart and stable and competent, who wants that in a president, right?

They may yet do the same with this election. If trump can fake a semblance of normalcy during the debates or even in October, the media has a number of dangerous narratives to choose from.

Corporate cable infotainment passing it's programming off as "news" has done a lot of damage. You cite Bush vs Gore. Remember the "Swiftboat Scum for Truth?" This is one of the biggest examples of a cable network posing as "news" influencing a Presidential election by giving credibility to garbage during Bush vs Kerry. Solution is to turn them OFF.

They will turn out.

Except that many of them are rebelling against electoral representation of the wealthy and sacking of the working classes. And just who is protecting the wealthy by diverting all focus to racism and xenophobia? The corporate media, of course.

Looking at the right beyond them, though, it's also important not to underestimate the right's calcified resistance to anything the Democrats want to do. They've been drinking that Kool-Aid for decades, and most of their current political beliefs are built around that certitude. In fact, for many it IS their only articulable political belief: They have to stop the Democrats. And many will come out only for that reason.

As for Trump, he's just a dysfunctional buffoon who would destroy and re-destroy his candidacy almost literally daily if not propped up by corrupt media and his foolish supporters.

like a Stradivarius. Only by turning out against him in sufficient numbers can we keep him from becoming President.

I keep running into union members and the working poor who will vote for him because he has convinced them that he will change things when he has made a history of dumping on the working Class and working poor, and his allies are Republicans who detest unions and the working poor.

Some may not like that idea, but it literally explains everything about his bizarre behaviors.

There is nothing new about the appeal of bigotry, xenophobia, and resentment against haves (all typical populist passions), and it takes no brilliance for a man with oratorical skills to push those always-flashing buttons. Trump's been doing it to get attention and display his magnificent power for decades. That some people see Trump as a strong man and seize upon him as the leader they need does not change him in the slightest. He is what he is.

And of course he will benefit himself if he can. But most of the very wealthy stay away from him because they've had experts study him, and they know he has no ideology beyond his own glorification and cannot be counted on for even a half hour to do what he says he will.

He is not interested in controlling himself--he admires himself the way he is, and others cannot control him. A true loose cannon, swinging erratically not just with the waves, but each errant little mental breeze.

I can't imagine what people think is going to happen that would make non-hard-core Republican voters choose Trump suddenly. The whole false equivalency effort is failing.

The team around him is very lacking, there is no diversity of views. You have Roger Ailes as probably the voice of reason between Mannon, Hannity, Ailes, and Conway. So they are trying to pivot, but they are incapable of doing it in such a way as to keep their rabid racist followers at the same time as making an appeal to the middle. As if the people in the middle aren't going to see through Trump praising Obama on Immigration. It would take a very skilled team to accomplish what Trump is trying to accomplish.

He went to far Right to win the GOP nomination, way further right than he had to. It's a very difficult task for him to now try to appear sane. When O'Reilly is slamming you to your face you've lost as a Republican.

I don't underestimate because the alternative to Hillary scares me to death