Thanks to Trump: The Presidential Campaign has moved into madness. (Trump crazy talk is now the norm)

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-sells-madness-many-are-buying?akid=14663.294211.OVLYea&rd=1&src=newsletter1064085&t=10

My friends, we have fallen down the rabbit hole. This presidential campaign has completely departed from ordinary reality, into a place where there's no such thing as truth and accountability is a joke—at least for some. I wish I could tell you with confidence that it all will work out in the end, that the electorate will be wise and thoughtful, that we'll only shake our heads and chuckle when we think back on 2016. But I'm no longer so sure.  

This is the sequence of events we witnessed over the last few days. On Friday, Donald Trump held an event at which he finally gave up the malignant crusade he has been on for the last five years to convince people that President Obama was not born in the United States. In doing so, however, he told a breathtakingly brazen lie: "Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy." There just isn't any debate about this: Neither Clinton nor her campaign ever mentioned the scurrilous rumors about Obama's birthplace in 2008. And in many of the news reports about Trump's event, reporters were unusually forthright in calling this lie for what it was.

Yet by Sunday morning, every Republican had obviously gotten the message: Don't worry about the fact-checks, don't worry about whether everyone knows we're lying, just keep repeating over and over that Hillary Clinton started birtherism.

And so they did. If you were unfortunate enough to watch the Sunday shows, you were fed this rancid tripe with a shovel. "Associates of the Clinton campaign started this Birtherism question in 2007," said Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Meet the Press. "We were reminding people where this started. It was used as a smear against Senator Obama by Clinton campaign associates." Later in the program, Republican consultant Alex Castellanos had the gall to complain that the media were being unfair to Trump by tarring him with birtherism. "I think these two candidates are being treated very differently on this very issue, because this is something that Hillary Clinton's campaign started when it was convenient for her. But the media covers it as if it is only Donald Trump" who's been a birther.
The Trump campaign has obviously figured out that this election is essentially the class bully facing off against the nerdy smart girl on the playground, and "I know you are but what am I?" is the most sophisticated and effective riposte one can offer to any criticism. And lord help us, it's working.

He's been doing it for a while now. When Clinton gave a long and detailed explanation of all the ways Trump has courted bigots and white supremacists and echoed their views, Trump didn't defend himself; instead he came out in front of a crowd and snarled, "Hillary Clinton is a bigot!" He runs outright scams like Trump University, the Trump Network, and the Trump Institute meant to separate struggling people from their money, then calls her "Crooked Hillary," and that's that. He doesn't bother to pretend to know anything or care at all when it comes to policy, yet tells his crowds, "Hillary Clinton is running a policy-free campaign. She offers no ideas, no solutions, only hatred and derision."

Do Trump's supporters buy all that? It's not even the right question anymore. They know it's ludicrous, but they're having the time of their lives. To those who support him, there is literally nothing that Trump says or does that they won't find a justification for. Tell them about how he scammed struggling people out of their money with his various schemes, and they say, hey, he was just being a businessman. Present them with his repellent views and statements, and they say, he just tells it like it is. Show them how many hundreds and hundreds of lies he's told, and they say, shut up because Hillary's the real liar.