It's getting harder and harder not to conclude that Trump is deliberately trying to lose, on an epic scale. Even if one grants him a narcissism beyond prior measure, even if you think he's mad as a hatter, there's no question the guy knows branding, and there is no brand more toxic or indelible in America circa 2016 than "racist." Thanks to his utterly gratuitous bashing and threatening of Judge Curiel on explicitly racial grounds -- gratuitous because the trial isn't even happening until after the election -- and his insistence on doubling and tripling down on it whenever given half a chance ("yeah, no Muslim judges, either") -- he has rendered himself a pariah to everybody but actual racists. In contemporary normative society, you cannot remain the owner of a professional sports team, you cannot remain a network performer, you cannot remain the CEO of a public company if you are clearly racist.
What you can be is the host, impressario and mogul of a subscription-based reality TV/radio empire -- call it the WTF (as in World Talk Federation... and also the obvious).
I still think Hillary's speech last week was a Mike Tyson round one knockdown -- but it wasn't a knockout. So Trump is answering the bell by one-upping her. "You think you can kick my ass, bitch? Wait'll you see how I kick my ass. You got nothin'!"
Remember, there was no "Tyler Durden." There was only Edward Norton pummelling himself.
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