Donald Trump is easy to criticize but impossible to ignore. If public exposure is a key to political success, Trump is rich. He has the sort of populist personality that has propelled a few other political figures into persistent notoriety and at least temporary success, people like Huey Long of Louisiana and "Pappy" O'Daniel of Texas. Even successful politicians of more mainline strength always have a strain of populism about them.
Trump is unusual because he has come closer to the presidency than any of these mainly demagogic predecessors largely because he is one of two candidates and the other, Hillary Clinton, is plagued with her own problems.
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Unless Trump becomes a bland, boring candidate, he will continue to get free publicity. By now none of us thinks Trump will become boring. Upon the advice of some who would give him advice, he might try, but he seems constitutionally unable. If he continues to be "The Donald," he will run the best race he can.
According to most polls and the assessment of most commentators, Trump is headed for an ignominious defeat, but polls and journalists will not elect the next president. Wishful Trump supporters say he has a hidden majority out there, many who don't usually vote and are not being polled. Look for a surprise in November, they say.
The polls are not to be absolutely relied upon but almost always give valid hints. If the electorate is anywhere near accurately reflected, flawed Hillary will defeat flawed Donald, but what if the polls and the rest of us can't accurately assess the electorate? That's the only chance Trump has, but it might be more real than we think.
Meanwhile, journalists can't avoid publicizing provocative and negative information about Trump and Clinton. We will also disseminate serious, more boring stuff about foreign policies and budgets, but a huge segment of voters doesn't care. They want to know how the next president will make them feel more important and maybe help them improve their economic lot. They might be chasing a pipe dream, but that's the stuff of the populist appeal. Trump's wall on the Mexican border is easier to get excited about than Clinton's promise to tweak and continue successful foreign affairs and economic policies.
This journalist, for one, relies in a sort of pudding-headed, sanguine way on the ultimate good sense of the American electorate. I don't believe we will elect Trump; or, if we do, he will not turn out to be as bad as we fear.
How else can we save ourselves from going into a terminal funk this election season? Expect the best or, at least, the OK. We are not headed for eternal hell.
This will be our reply to violence — to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.
Composer Leonard Bernstein
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