I wonder if his ego is big enough to survive the nuclear attacks that will be launched against him going forward.
I'm amused that you are so confident that the same types of attacks that have utterly failed thus far are somehow going to work in the general election.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's very unlikely that he will prevail if he's the nominee due to demographic realities. But then again, it was also unlikely that he'd prevail in the first place and get as far as he's gotten. The definition of stupid is to keep making the same predictions based on the same assumptions that have proven wrong over and over.
I see things in the reverse of the article. Trump doesn't beat people by attacking or bullying them. He wins by provoking them into attacking him, whether it's the media or another candidate. He's a fantastic troll. He looks strong by taking their attacks and being unaffected. They just keep coming after him and declaring his demise and they keep breaking their teeth on him, over and over and over.
Part of this is due to the general anti establishment zeitgeist that he's tapping into, part of it is the way he skillfully manipulates the traditional media into ganging up on him in just the way he wants to antagonize his electorate, and part of it is his ability to sniff out the real wants of his target constituency, even what they're unlikely to say out loud or can't express because traditional media outlets won't give them a venue.
In terms of the general election, I'd agree that certain demographic realities will be a significant challenge for Trump. The Democrats are going to have an inherent edge in this contest, due to the degree the Republicans as a group (and Trump in particular) have antagonized on the non white population (Latinos!). But if there's a terrorist attack between now and the election, watch out - this is a shot in the arm to a guy like Trump. Against an amorphous weasel like a Hillary Clinton, Trump is going to take the advantage. I happen to think that Hillary is way weaker than she's getting credit for.
The more interesting contest for me would be a Bernie versus Trump. I actually think that in terms of personality, Bernie might be an anti Trump. I don't think he can be provoked into making the kind of self-destructive attacks that have helped Trump so far. Bernie also is a type of truthteller with a direct unpretentious style that will be very hard for Trump to undermine. Bernie's only weakness in such a contest would be his socialist political background, which is further left than the natural orientation of the core American electorate.
