Trump. God help us.

"Trump is going to win without an extraordinary change in the race’s trajectory that seems unlikely, to put it mildly. He’s led this race since he entered it and he’s never surrendered the lead. That’s the truth, and the truth really hurts for conservatives who find his candidacy an ideological, moral and political calamity."

--John Podhoretz, New York Post

 “Fire Up Washington 
Send The Trumpinator”

 --Sign seen at Nevada caucus site

We have argued that the less-educated working class, angry with our elite’s version of “life,” will be heard this time. Trump is their megaphone. And after Super Tuesday, with help from the angry, Trump has nearly grasped the Republican nomination.

Podhoretz and other conservatives aren’t happy. Ben Domenech, who publishes the conservative Federalist, with a resigned shrug writes:

The Trump phenomenon is . . . the beta-test of a cure that the American people are trying out. It won’t work. But this is where our politics are going: working and middle class Americans are reasserting themselves against a political and cultural establishment that has become completely discredited over time and due to their own actions.

Working class ally Joel Kotkin, in the Orange County Register, thinks

Race may play a large role in the next few weeks of voting but, ultimately, other factors – income, age, geography – will be more determinative of the outcome in November.

But after Trump sent a possible “dog whistle” message to whites uncomfortable with Obama-black America by hesitating to “condemn unequivocally” David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan, I’m thinking race may well “play a large role” in defeating Trump come November. Democrats won’t let this one slip by. Kotkin hopes the election will be about economics. Maybe not.

I listened to Trump’s post-Super Tuesday press conference, for the first time considering he might be president. I understand the appeal enforcing our immigration laws has for people whose jobs are threatened by low-wage illegal or legal immigrants, and know new tax policies can help keep many American jobs here.

But I don’t trust Trump’s “renegotiate trade treaties” talk. High tariffs don’t work; they helped trigger the Great Depression. He seems sincere, which really bothers me. Doesn’t he understand the law of comparative advantages? We have to train our people to a place in the new economy, not fight to keep old economy jobs in place.

Marco Rubio may be down and nearly out. But he’s right to attack Trump on hiring illegal aliens, on hiring foreign workers over Americans, on talking tough on China while selling China-made ties and suits, on Trump's “Trump University” fraud, on posing as common Joe when he inherited millions, on going bankrupt several times saving his skin and ruining little people.

Trump is a con man. More than ever, one hopes, “God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.”