I'm starting to think that Trump might just pull this off...

Trump's political opponents seem hell-bent on getting him elected. Dixit Linus Torvalds, father of Linux and otherwise political moderate:

It used to be that the only thing that made Donald Trump look good was comparing him with the other Republican candidates. Because even a whiny five-year old megalomaniac looks positively stellar when compared to a religious nut who loves the death penalty.
Now, those other Republican candidates are gone. That should make for a saner baseline, no?
No.
These days, it's the anti-Trump protesters that make "the Donald" look good in comparison.
Christ, people. You're doing it wrong.

One can only assume that this is in reference to the sustained violence at the Trump rally in San Jose, CA last night which seemed to be perpetrated by a motley crew of students, Mexican nationalists and union-backed thugs and involved Trump supporters being pelted with eggs, sucker-punched, and clubbed on the side of the head. I watched the videos and it was indisputably appalling. The American Constitution has the First Amendment which guarantees the right to free speech; as P. J. O'Rourke remarked, it also implies the responsibility to live with the consequences. If you vocally support Trump because you hate people with brown skin, you're an asshat and the concomitant public opprobrium is your problem. But if you are physically attacked for supporting the Republican party candidate for President, then there are other laws which should come into play and they should be squarely aimed at - and enforced on - your attacker.

The Bay Area news organisations - with the commendable exception of KRON 4 were carefully keeping the lid on reports of the violence last night. Even CNN sat on it until reporting on the violence was unavoidable; even then, there were strenuous efforts to deflect the blame towards Trump. San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo's comments were particularly awful:

"Our police officers have done an extremely courageous and professional job so far," Liccardo told The Associated Press Thursday night. "At some point Donald Trump needs to take responsibility for the irresponsible behavior of his campaign."

Yes, heaven forfend that a Presidential candidate actually speak clearly about his intentions to enforce the law of the land and secure a nation's borders. There are very reasonable arguments to be had about whether this is a good idea or not, but the implicit blaming of Trump for the actions of the protestors was disgraceful. Liccardo has the luxury of an electorate who would vote him in based on party affiliation even if it came out that he framed OJ, spied for China, and buggered raccoons on his free weekends, so the concept of trying to win an election based on popular policy is doubtless alien to him. His blatant repudiation of the First Amendment might well be related to metropolitan California's sustained attack on the Second Amendment, but neither does him any credit.

Faced with a Twitter firestorm, he tried to walk this back later on:

I condemn all acts of violence committed against people who exercise their rights to free speech and assembly pic.twitter.com/PumCWdfWnT

— Sam Liccardo (@sliccardo) June 3, 2016

but it's clear where his sympathies lie.

If I were Donald Trump, I'd be campaigning from now until November in Democrat stronghold cities around the USA. It won't win me those states, but the widely-reported predictable riots and abuse from the opposition will steadily win me marginal voters in every marginal state around the country. Even if those marginal voters can't stand me (or my hair), they'd rather be with me than the scumballs throwing eggs and beating up women.