"Donald Trump has lost little support since the first presidential debate, despite days of damaging news stories about his treatment of women, according to a new poll."

"Hillary Clinton leads Trump 47 percent to 43 percent among likely voters in a four-way race, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post national poll."

That's Politico, putting in rather bland terms something that ought to be powerfully alarming to those who cannot abide even the risk that Trump could win the presidency. Why isn't he losing by a lot more? What explains his pesky resiliency?

Nearly 70 percent say they believe that Trump has “made unwanted sexual advances toward women,” a stunning number that comes after the publication of lewd comments the now-Republican nominee made on a hot mic in 2005, and amid allegations by several women who say he touched them inappropriately. (Trump has said his comments were just "locker room talk" and denies the groping accusations.)

And a majority of registered voters -- 55 percent -- say that Trump's treatment of women is a legitimate issue, version 42 percent who say it wasn't. Similarly, most voters aren't buying Trump's apology for the 2005 video -- 57 percent of registered voters say it was insincere, and only 40 percent agree it sounded like "typical locker room talk by men."

Just 30 percent of registered voters say Trump has a “strong moral character,” versus 45 percent for Clinton. Only 34 percent view Trump as honest and trustworthy, down from 42 percent in last month’s survey. And just 34 percent say Trump has the right temperament to be president, while 59 percent say Clinton does.

And yet, she's only got 4 points on him. She must be truly loathed. I know she wants to win, but imagine winning like that, knowing you are not wanted.

As for Trump, the battering he's taking is epic, but he still survives.



Oh, sorry. That's just something I channel-surfed into on TV yesterday. It flashed back on me somehow.

Godzilla is a monster, causing endless destruction, but when he goes down losing, you get this crazy empathy for him. Am I saying Trump is a monster? Trump is like a monster, tromping through the built-up structures of American politics. How can he be stopped? Nothing seems to work. He keeps going. Yes, but in the end, he'll go down. Afterwards, you'll remember and think oddly fondly of him, and the characters who defeated him won't have your heart. Unlike a dead movie monster, Trump will still be a live human being, doing... whatever. The movie monster, even though killed in the movie, manages — if we've loved him — to get brought back to life for the sequels and remakes. But Trump will be around, and we'll want to see him again. His relentless, unstoppable rampage was so perversely rousing and even, for some, endearing.

Writing this makes me remember that Scott Adams has been talking about Trump's campaign as a movie. Adams saw Trump as the protagonist in a non-monster movie:

He explains that in the first act of a movie, "something unexpected [happens] that changes somebody's life trajectory" -- like deciding to run for president. In the second act, "you would see your protagonist overcoming a number of smaller hurdles," ending with the discovery of a seemingly unsolvable problem. In the third act, the protagonist grows or changes in order to solve the unsolvable problem. 

With that template, Adams predicts Trump will win the election. The protagonist solves his problem in the movie, and that could happen in real live because

He... wrote [last October]: "Once we recognize the movie form, we root for the hero, automatically. We have been trained by Hollywood to do that. You can’t turn it off in your mind. You can’t ignore it. If a candidate can wrap his or her personal story into a three-act form, that is the highest level of persuasion."

"The idea of the third-act problem usually involves a character flaw of your hero," he explained [in mid-August]. "It is a problem that they specifically can't solve because of a character defect. They're afraid of something, they can't forgive, they've been a liar all their life until now... That's what makes it a good movie, we like to see people change in some positive way. That's what makes us feel good. Because in the real world we don't see it happen, hardly ever."

So this is the idea that movies have trained our minds to identify the hero and root for him, especially as his problems become insurmountable. Within that template, everything bad that happens to Trump is good, because it sets up the profoundly satisfying emotional reward. The audience/voters could make him win, because deeply, psychically we want the hero to win. But it's one thing to watch and feel satisfaction when the hero overcomes all the obstacles. It's another to get up off the couch and translate your deep desires into the real-world action of voting.

And what's missing from Adams's movie analysis is the monster hero. We want his rampaged stopped, we expect the closure that comes with killing him, and our deep psychic connection to the monster comes not as he wins but as he dies. Look how profound and exalted it is when Godzilla dies:

"Ben Carson has taken a narrow lead nationally in the Republican presidential campaign, dislodging Donald J. Trump from the top spot for the first time in months..."

"... according to a New York Times/CBS News survey released on Tuesday."

Carson has 26%, Trump 22%. The very quiet man is beating the very noisy man.

The distant third is Rubio with 8%, and Bush and Fiorina are dragging closely after him, each with 7%. Paul, Cruz, Huckabee, Kasich slog along in a dreary pack under the embarrassing number 4.

Did you realize there's another debate tomorrow? What's the best thing that could happen, I wonder. After Hillary Clinton's big week, last week, powered by the weakness of Republicans, what can these characters do this week to give nonGOP fans a sense that anything should or could change the trajectory toward Hillary Clinton's seemingly inevitable victory a year from now?

I'm picturing Trump blustering, Carson murmuring, and everyone else boring the pants off us. Will they — should they — attack each other or is it time to demonstrate that they have what it takes to stop Hillary? If the latter, what can they do that won't remind us of how ineffectual the Benghazi committee was in revealing her to be undeserving of the public's trust?

IN THE COMMENTS: People are accusing me of having somehow suddenly become a Hillary supporter. I respond:

Those who think I'm dedicated to Hillary are seriously deluded. Your delusion is part of a syndrome that is going to help her win. You are in a dream world in which the practicalities of winning don't matter. I'm trying to wake you up. If you are going to just say things like Wow, Althouse is in the tank for Hillary, then you are part of the problem you are blithering about.

After some defense of my use of the word "blithering" and more push back about my supposed in-the-tankedness for Hillary, I say:

I think Hillary is and should be beatable. I just don't see the Republicans getting it together to do that. I think that's what Jeb realizes and why he's blithering that he's got "a lot of really cool things" he could do other than run for President. With the normal candidates crumpling, you're left with a weird party that normal voters won't be able to take seriously. That's what I see down the road, and nobody who's complaining about my telling you that is saying anything that makes me think the situation is going to get better for Republicans.

The official Hillary Clinton website does viral media with a collection of how-to tips on how to make DIY Hillary costumes for Halloween.

The page is titled "Texts from Hillary and 4 other DIY Hillary Clinton costumes for Halloween/What’s in Hillary’s closet? A lifetime of looks," and there are 5 photos of Hillary from various stages of her life, each with a photo of a woman emulating her. We're given a list of items, for example, to be "Hipster Hillary," from 1969, you need a white blouse, glasses, striped pants, "leather shoes" (why stress "leather" rather than sandals?), and long, loose hair. The campaign promo is there: Hillary was "Wellesley College’s first-ever student commencement speaker."



I got there via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, that is, I caught the virus through someone who loathes Hillary and prompts readers to laugh contemptuously ("Not The Onion"). I was initially surprised that the campaign would portray Hillary as a subject for Halloween (traditionally the realm of monsters and the dead), but reading the page, I saw the value. The bio is there, the young women modeling the costumes all look like they're having fun with it. And the Hillary haters who propagate the link, layering on their contempt and astonishment, give it spin that is useful for those who'd love to scream with horror at that old reflexive misogyny, risen from the grave once again.

By the way, back in 1969, college kids didn't refer to each other as "hipsters." A "hipster" would have been a man from the past, more of a 1950s beatnik in some smoky urban jazz club. The word the Hillary campaign has apparently forgotten is: "hippie."

Hippie, oddly enough, has become a go-to Halloween costume in recent years, perhaps because it's easy to put together from crap you might have around the house, like the old-standbys of the 1950s and 60s: bum and gypsy.

"Yeah, last week was the week Hillary won the presidency," I said.

Meade said, "Where are you reading that?" I said, "I'm just saying it."