When are these pundits on television finally going to get it about Donald Trump? If I hear one more person compare his situation to when Rudy Giuliani lead the polls in 2007 then went nowhere, or call it a summer fling that Republicans are having to vent their anger, or blame the American people as not paying attention to the election, I will yell at the television.
Donald Trump isn't going to be the next President. Heck, I've even said that he absolutely needs to drop out of this election. But he's definitely here to stay for the GOP primary.
Get used to it.
Trump is tapping into the anti-establishment anger that started with the Great Recession and continued with the administration of President Obama. That anger and fear aren't going away, and with the failure of the GOP to win the last two presidential elections, the Tea Party wing is going to make their preference for an extreme candidate known.
We've seen that with growing support for Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. And Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, perceived as the two favorites for months, are now faltering in the polls.
The most obvious indication that Trump isn't going away soon is Bush's campaign -- he's fully going on the attack against the billionaire. Bush is making his stand now to cut Trump down before he gets even stronger. Look for a Super PAC to carpet bomb Trump with television ads during the fall television season. They can no longer wait.
Don't believe the Republicans who say Trump is about to fade away, and don't underestimate the idea of Trump's support growing.
It can, and it will.
The more Trump tackles issues of unfairness -- like saying hedge fund managers are undertaxed and the middle class need their rates cuts -- the more his support will grow.
Trump's slogan of making "America Great Again" appeals to a lot of people who've seen the country's middle class falter going all the way back to the 1970s, when factories started closing and jobs started going overseas. The problem has worsened and wages haven't kept up, creating fear that our parents and grandparents had it better than us. That's not the American mindset, and Trump's saying that he will make the country rich again has the same appeal of someone signing up for a seminar on getting wealthy.
That message, along with attacking China and Mexico for hurting the American economy, is going to become even more popular.
Populism sells, and when you have a rich guy selling populism when people are frustrated by their station in life, that's going to be appealing.
People want to be successful like Trump. And he knows how to sell that. (I swear that an all-Trump TV would actually do well this election.) Meanwhile, not one of the other GOP candidates are convincing people that the country can get great again or that people could soon have more money in their pockets.
Trump's message isn't enough to win a general election, because he's alienated Hispanics and can't overcome the demographics. One study by Latino Decisions says the GOP will need at least 47 percent of the Hispanic vote to win the presidential election.
That's not going to happen.
So the pundits must stop looking at the past to handicap Trump. Giuliani's leading in the polls at this same point isn't the same as what we have here with Trump. The former New York mayor had no shot of translating that national polling to wins in Iowa and New Hampshire or South Carolina and Nevada.
If they want to say Trump can't win in the general election, that's fine. He won't. But Jeb Bush and the others are starting to realize that a win in the GOP primary is getting further out of their reach.
None of them saw this coming.