Pundits overreact to Trump, but this election truly is grim

It is difficult to watch the talking heads, pundits and know-it-alls drop all pretense, team up with Democrats, and go after Donald Trump like a pack of wild dogs. It is enough to make you fear for the future of this nation.

Take, for instance, the all-too-predictable, undies-in-a-bunch reaction to Trump's latest off-the-cuff shot to the foot.

At a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Trump said: "Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know."

Democrats and their media pals climbed out of the rabbit hole to surmise he was – gasp! – calling for violence against Hillary Clinton and for days peddled that iffy-at-best narrative to anybody who would listen.

As painfully inarticulate and goofy as Trump is, can there really be any doubt if he intended to call for violence, he is nuts enough to have said it outright? Is it not simply and rationally more likely he was, indeed, talking about the political muscle of Second Amendment forces?

Since his Wilmington gaffe, Trump again — as always — has dominated the headlines and cable channels and broadcast networks. Clinton can barely wedge a word in edgewise. At every opportunity, panels of our somber-looking betters have dissected what Trump said, slicing it, dicing it, criticizing it, defending it. Ad nauseam. The left's conclusion? He is, by God, a menace.

The left and the media, though, have short memories, especially when it comes to menaces in their own camps.

Take, for instance, Joe Biden, another guy sorely lacking in the good sense and gift of gab departments. Then the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Biden in 2008 tried to blunt assertions Barack Obama would take Americans'  firearms. How? By threatening to shoot him.

"I guarantee ya," Biden said. "Barack Obama ain't takin' my shotgun, so don't buy that malarkey, don't buy that malarkey. They're gonna start peddlin' that deal. I got two, if he tries to fool with my Beretta he's got a problem. I like that little over and under – you know I'm not bad with it."

Then, there is Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, in 2008 trotted out Robert F. Kennedy's assassination as her rationale for staying in the race against Barack Obama until the bitter end, suggesting Obama might be assassinated along the way.

Biden and Clinton get passes. Trump? Not so much.

What the frothing media and their leftist pals do not understand is that the more they hammer Trump with over-the-top, emotional, hyped-up attacks, the more likely it is that he will bounce back and survive.

His supporters, like Sarah Palin's, are disinterested in facts. Their minds are made up. Even if it were written in neon on a black, moonless night, it could not be more obvious to them the media and the left are yanking out all the stops to get Trump – no matter what. It plays into his wheelhouse.

Trumpers have little use for the media and liberals who seem to go out of their way to marginalize them. They are tired of fat cat Democrats who pretend to know what is best for them and spineless Republicans afraid to stand up for this nation or their principles.

They are tired of the lousy economy and the "if you like your doctor" lies and an arrogant government that wants to know and control too much. They are fed up with their needs and wants being ignored; of being told to step aside, but, oh, leave your cash here. They wonder at their nation being turned into a Third World trash heap.

They are hopping mad. And afraid. They should be.

Trump and Clinton are the miscreant progeny of a corrupt, shattered political system, which nowadays best could be described as a kakistocracy, or government by the most unscrupulous or unsuitable people.

Democrats and Republicans alike can share credit — and blame — for Trump's resilience and Clinton's survival. So can those of us too busy to pay attention to what is going on in politics; or who think it is safe to let somebody else do the heavy lifting; or who think character does not matter. The  media, too, is complicit.

The grim reality is one of them – Hillary Obama, er, Clinton, lugging more baggage than the QEII and having no acquaintance with the truth, or Trump, with his runaway yap and startlingly tempestuous idiocy — is going to be sitting in the Oval Office early next year.

Like our current president, neither is even remotely qualified. I fear we are about to get what we richly deserve.

Again.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.