The great thing about Donald Trump is how he totally freaks out The New York Times while making CNN salivate.  The day after the debate, we get Frank Bruni bemoaning the blurred lines between politics and entertainment, an objection that makes me wonder where Bruni has been since the 1980s, when Trump ascended into the popular culture, Yes, CNN salivates at the prospect of a president that it can probably cover through sitcom, but let's not give into Bruni's yearning for a serious politics of yore that never was.

Bruni is so bent out of shape that he's actively rooting for Jeb Bush to smack Trump down. Without irony, he is cheering for the privileged son of an elite American family to defend dignity in American politics, as if elite American families aren't primarily responsible for the chaos that has reigned in the halls of power for decades. It's also funny how, faced with Trump, Bruni is left to evoke Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee, of all people, as standard-bearers of humility in politics. If those two hate Trump's ego it's only because Trump leaves no air left for their own self-aggrandizing bloviations.

Speaking of Huckabee (bigger than Jesus by pants size), the Times taps Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention to complain that:

"Donald J. Trump stands astride the polls in the Republican presidential race, beating all comers in virtually every demographic of the primary electorate. Most illogical is his support from evangelicals and other social conservatives. To back Mr. Trump, these voters must repudiate everything they believe."

At first this seems non-controversial. Culturally, Trump is a city slicker billionaire who brags about having sex with models.  I forget where I first saw it, but one of the best descriptions of Trump is that he's a white man in his 60s who lives like a rapper in the prime of his career. If John Edwards was the Breck Girl, Trump is the Material Girl.  There's nothing Christian or holy about the guy.  He is, non-figuratively, a money changer.

But who does Moore think he's fooling?  Evangelical Trump supporters aren't betraying their true beliefs, they are revealing them.  Back in the 1980s, when Trump unleashed his hair upon the world, what were the evangelicals doing?  That's right, they were enriching Pat Robertson, Jimmy and Tammy Faye Baker, and Orville Oral Roberts.  The truth is, these people like preachers. Not only will they evangelicals vote for preachers, they will shower them with money, get nothing in return, and then write another check!

Sorry, Russ -- big mouthed egoists have been manipulating your conservative evangelical voters since forever.  At least Trump is letting them keep their money. Well, so long as they never went to Trump University.