I’ve known for a while that my ultra-conservative father despises Trump, but I find it causes some cognitive dissonance nevertheless. I know Trump is pushing all the right emotional buttons to appeal to somebody like my Dad, who sure seems to fit the trumpenvolken profile. But maybe now that Fox isn’t pushing Trump, he’s discerning Trump’s ideological apostasy, particularly the slams at St. Wall Street (“the Democrats destroyed the economy, not the banks, dammit!”). He doesn’t like that sort of thing one little bit, he’ll tell you!

And he’s not pleased with the Republican Establishment, either. As much as he hates Trump, he thinks it would be an outrage for the party bosses to overrule the “will of the people”. Remarkable how many people don’t understand how primaries and caucuses and conventions work.

His attitude toward the Party’s potential disloyalty is no doubt a solid indicator that my father will vote for Trump in November if he’s the nominee. He hates and fears Hillary more than he fears, and hates, Donald. He’ll hold his nose and vote for him.

So endeth this dispatch from the far right field.

The Babbitts want to be assured they will be able to maintain their economic status and that their children can build on what they have already achieved. For the first time in their lives it is starting to look like that may no longer be possible.

The Bunkers just want to be Babbits and avoid becoming Bubbas. They thought it was just beyond their grasp, but now they feel it slipping further and further away.

The Bubbas remember what it was like to be a Bunker, and they are desperate for just one more chance at it.

But stopping Trump will accomplish little. Cruz has been drafting along in his slipstream and if the Donald falters he will simply pull over and pass him on the Right. Trump is just a strutting buffoon, Cruz is the most dangerous man on the planet.

Right now, among the many conservatives I know, they think the guy is crazy, don’t want him as the nominee, etc.

But I think, that on a cold November morning, they’ll vote for the candidate with the “R” next to it.They would never, ever vote for a “D”. I haven’t pressed them, but I kinda know that they hate Hillary more than they fear Donald. They’ll hold their noses and vote for him.

That’s what scares me.

The problem is, that unless you’re the sort of person who supports or defends Trump, things aren’t really all that bad, and neither is Obama. We’re nowhere near the kind of situation we were in when Obama took office. The country has recovered from the Great Recession much better and much faster than it did the Great Depression. Just look up how well things were going in 1937.

Oh sure, the usual caveats; maybe things aren’t going as well as we’d like them to, but let’s face it, its never going to be 1960 ever again. As for most folks, they could be doing a lot worse. In fact, most of the people who are in a really bad situation nowadays are not the type that’s very likely to be supporting or defending Trump anyway.

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said on Sunday that he is looking into paying the legal fees for a man who sucker-punched a protester at his campaign rally on Wednesday.

“I’ve instructed my people to look into it,” Trump told host Chuck Todd during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

John McGraw, 78, was charged with assault after he was shown in multiple videos sucker-punching an African-American protester who was being led out of a Trump campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Instead of arresting McGraw, the authorities on site detained Rakeem Jones, the protester. McGraw, meanwhile, told “Inside Edition” after the event that the next time he saw Jones, “we might have to kill him.”

and…

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump continued to insist Sunday that a protester who’d tried to rush the stage at his campaign rally the day before had ties to the Islamic State militant group, citing an Internet video that appears to be a hoax.

The protester, identified as Thomas DiMassimo, attempted to rush the stage at a Trump rally in Dayton, Ohio. He was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic.

Not long afterward, Trump claimed on Twitter that “the maniac running to the stage… has ties to ISIS.”

During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Trump was asked by host Chuck Todd whether he had gone “over the top” in making the ISIS accusation. Trump replied that he hadn’t.