The average of 15 US media outlet election polls since Oct 1st to date have Hilary Clinton ahead by 6 percentage points.  A slim margin indeed.  Most of the people I talk to ( all Canadian residents and mainly Canadian nationals) struggle understanding Trumps popularity.

Most are concerned about his racist, misogynistic, far right conservative values.  How can a presidential candidate who incites violence and expresses extreme intolerance recieve such strong support.

Rationalization

I participated in a vibrant disscussion yesterday about Mr. Trump.  Fortunately, rather than a group of like minded individuals wondering how anyone could support Trump, we had a devils advocate in our midst.

Our advocate noted things like how Trump has actually never publicly stated policy that is unreasonable.  For example he supports enforcement of the existing immigration laws (strict enforcement but nothing more)

Mr.Trump is oft quoted as calling Mexicans rapists and murderers.  More accurately he said Mexican rapist and murderers should not be allowed into the US (not that all Mexicans were rapists and murderers)

Our devils advocate asked if the male conversants had never spoken about women as the weaker sex.  Men do this just not usually with the women present.  So are Trumps remarks in this regard really so bad.  Is he just not voicing what the male majority think in private.

Balancing the arguments, point and counterpoint, went on for some time with each Trump aggregious comment counter balanced by a logical argument.

In Context

If there is no such thing as bad publicity, Trump is going to triumph.  He is controversial but heavily covered.  You might not like his exaggerated statements, largely meant to get your attention,  but it works.

I am not sure what our devils advocate really thinks or whom he supports in the next US Federal election, however, his thought provoking alternate views very much help put this election drama (that seems so silly and hard to believe) into the serious context it really repesents.