THIS KIND OF THING COULD PUSH TRUMP TO A DOUBLE-DIGIT LEAD

Michael Scherer just wrote a story on Trump for Time, and he promoted it with this blog post yesterday. DougJ flagged the post for a noxious bit of boot-licking on Scherer's part:

Like Starbucks or The Gap, Trump has crafted a brand that feels white glove but is sold blue collar. He may have gilded his Fifth Avenue penthouse, but he is still a Queens kid to the core.

(In case you don't know, Trump's father's net worth at death was reported to be at least a quarter of a billion dollars. So the Donald had, shall we say, a leg up.)

But I want to direct your attention to this in Scherer's post:

Because of space, I was not able to include at length some of his best quotes in the magazine story. Here are some additional excerpts. At one point I asked Trump if he was sure his business success could translate in Washington, D.C. As a sort of test, I asked if he knew how many members there are in the U.S. House of Representatives. He responded,

Well I don't want to answer your questions because this isn't a history class. You people, you know you are trying to do the Sarah Palin stuff. And anytime somebody asks me a question like who is the leader of Abu Dhabi, I say this isn't a history class, okay? And I actually know. And I know your answer too, but I refuse to answer it. You know why? Because it's not a history class. And because it's an irrelevant question. Because you could get some stiff who knows every one of those answers but is incapable of governing.

Boom! Trump finds another wingnut pleasure center: Asked to demonstrate his command of facts that are clearly relevant to the job he's (allegedly) seeking, he declares the very line of questioning to be an elitist liberal-media trick. The GOP base loves that kind of thing! It's Ronald Reagan! It's George W. Bush circa 2000-2004! It's '08-'09 Sarah Palin! And if he's bluffing (as he almost certainly is), they don't give a crap! Because knowledge is for egghead wuss liberals! Real Americans govern from the gut!

If he has an exchange like this on TV, he's going to 50% in the GOP polls. He'll be unstoppable.