The Media will Try to Anoint Donald Trump Today

Today, voters from an area of the country that has no thought or hope of giving Republicans any electoral votes in November will go to the polls. They come from an area that has for years enacted failed economic policies that have caused the region to systematically hemorrhage both population and jobs to other areas of the country – areas like Texas. They come from an area of the country where loudmouthed liberalism is the order of the day.

And so, of course, they will vote for Donald Trump. I would expect that he will either sweep the delegates today or come very close to doing so. As you watch the returns roll in they are going to tell you that Trump has turned a corner, and he is ready to put this election away.

When you hear this rhetoric, use your brain and your critical thinking skills to evaluate whether what they are saying is true. If you had predicted, way back in February, that the GOP primary was going to still be competitive at the end of April, then you would have circled this day as a likely sweep for Donald Trump. The only thing that would have been surprising is if Trump did not clear 50% in any of the states that are voting today, given the geographic and cultural territory. Anything less would have been counted as a total loss. April 26th has always been a necessary day for Donald Trump.

So if and when he wins today, all he is doing is meeting expectations. He’s really doing nothing more surprising than Cruz winning Texas (or Nebraska, which he will doubtless do next month) by a huge margin. Nothing at all has changed for Trump and there is no evidence that he has “righted the ship.”

In fact, in polls outside of his backyard in the Northeast, he remains stubbornly stuck at 40% or below. He stands a good chance of winning some of these states because John Kasich is a delusional, narcissistic idiot, but 60% of the Republican party (at least) rejects the idea of Trump as the nominee, and that has not changed.

Nor has Trump’s delegate math changed as a result of today. The key states remaining on this calendar are still Indiana and California. Trump can’t win without getting about 150 of the 224 delegates that those two states have on offer, and they are both still very competitive.

So why will the media do this? Well, because they obviously want Trump to win. Trump has been a ratings bonanza for all the networks, including MSNBC and CNN. Having Trump around to talk about through November would probably lead to a record setting year for the networks. Cruz is less exciting (and less likely to lose to Hillary in historic fashion), so they have a direct pecuniary interest in Trump winning the nomination. And so they are going to help it happen in any way they can.

Expect John King to do everything but place a bejeweled crown on a wax dummy of Donald Trump tonight, and don’t be deceived. They have done this every step of the way in this race. They did it after Trump won New Hampshire. They did it even more loudly after South Carolina and even more loudly than that after Nevada. They said the race was over after Super Tuesday. They said Trump had officially put the race away after Michigan. They said there’s no way this would go to a contested convention after he won Florida.

At every step of the way, the media has tried to actively paint the narrative that the GOP primary is over and the voters should get in line behind Trump. The only problem is, GOP voters keep refusing to do so, and they will keep refusing to do so after today.

Maybe, after all is said and done, Trump will be able to parlay 40% of the GOP primary vote into 50% of the delegates and win the nomination – after all the system is “rigged,” but in his favor. But we’re a long way from that point and Trump has a lot of difficult work ahead if he’s going to get there.

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