An internet troll is somebody who deliberately gets under the skin of someone else.
You get angrier and angrier as you're being trolled as someone keeps insisting on a position
that seems crazy.
And what we're seeing with Donald Trump, at least in effect is that with Republican leaders.
This all started with his announcement speech in New York, it was a rambling affair, but
he said some of these controversial things about immigrants and started to attract some
attention to his campaign there.
"They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists."
And then, more recently, what we've seen over this past weekend in Nevada and in Phoenix,
Arizona, he's been very much attracting bigger crowds.
He's speaking for what he calls a "silent majority."
Now the truth is, it's not a majority of the American public, it's not a majority of the
Republican Party, but it is a segment of the Republican Party that has been silent, and
now has this huge megaphone to make its case.
The Republican Party, as it stands now, is largely white and aging.
It's very difficult for the Republican Party to reach out to Latino voters at a time when
the surging candidate in the Republican presidential primary is a guy who basically says, "send
'em home."
"We have horrible, we have some terrible people coming in."
He's lost some deals.
Most notably, his relationship with NBC, where he was basically the main guy on The Apprentice.
But the bigger problem for Trump has been the Republican side, where party leaders are
trying to put pressure on him to tone it down.
Reince Priebus got on the phone with Trump and basically said please, pull this back
a little bit, you're making us look terrible.
And Trump's reaction was to dial it up.
There's no incentive for him to not be a troll.
The more he does it, the more attention he gets, the more attention he gets, the more
voters he seems to be attracting to his candidacy.
And look, right now, he's virtually tied with Jeb Bush for the lead of the Republican presidential
nomination.
Not bad for a guy who used to be laughed at as he screamed "You're fired" on national
television.
We're almost a year and a half away from the election, so there's a lot of time for Donald
Trump to implode, and Republicans are praying that he does.
But right now, what he's basically doing is making it impossible for establishment Republican
candidates to go more moderate on this question and portray themselves in a way that will
be appealing to the general electorate without alienating the now Trump-led conservative
base.
If you're the Democrats, if you're Hillary Clinton, you're watching from the sidelines,
popcorn in your mouth, soda by your side, and hoping that this movie never ends.