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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Digging deep into trench rescue training ... Why we sing for peace (part II) ... Ticket availability ... Digging deep into trench rescue training ... Why we sing for peace (part II) ... Ticket availability ... COMMENTARY Jeffrey Gillespie: Hail to the creep Comment DailyTidings.com Writer Posted May. 13, 2016 at 12:01 AM Posted May. 13, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News What is it about we, the media, that compels us to continue the conversation about Donald J. Trump? Is it the fact that he makes for easy coverage? Is it, perhaps, our own subconscious compulsion to be liked by him, so pervasive and persuasive are his tactics? Perhaps there are a few among us who continue to think that we are the David to his Goliath. That one stellar column from the very people who are most hated by Trump's constituents would fell the giant who is in the process of turning the tables on the entire Washington establishment. Thanks to the media, Trump has now received in excess of $2 billion in free coverage. To put that number into perspective, it is an amount that mightily eclipses the now puny-sounding $889 million pulled together by the nefarious Koch brothers and their proxies a year or so ago, when the GOP establishment was still functioning under the assumption that their nominating process would be business as usual. In other words, if you had sufficient money, you could buy yourself a nice, passive, capitulating senator or governor who would be business-friendly and well-rehearsed, for careful placement into the race and, ultimately, fit neatly into a nomination at the Republican convention. Fast forward a year. As your columnist sits down to write, the radio in the background is announcing that Trump and his team have just finished a meeting with the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. Ryan, in turn, is finishing up a post-coital press conference in which he has made it very clear that he is now, more or less, in bed with Trump. Ryan refers to the red-haired robber baron as "the presumptive nominee." He speaks of how well the meeting went, how it is a good first step, and how Trump is now on his way to meet with the remaining GOP leadership from the House and Senate. These developments should have any Democrats not in a vegetative state quaking in their boots. When Republicans circle the wagons, especially in a crisis situation, they have an uncanny ability to reverse outcomes. This columnist is within inches of predicting the once unthinkable. Trump may use his legendary persuasive powers — coupled with an uncanny ability to shape-shift and hold in thrall whatever audience he is currently engaged with — to his best benefit. His shrewdness, and his understanding of power politics, are about to culminate in a seduction of the GOP elders that could turn Ryan and his supplicants into the mother of all trophy wives come November. There is something very dirty happening in the psyche of America, and Trump knows it. He is about to pull off the mass seduction of an entire sector of the American voting public. As Ryan himself said Thursday morning, Trump has effectively mobilized the largest number of new voters in the history of the Republican Party. With Hillary Clinton still trying to rid herself of the Bernie factor, and only six short months to go before the election, it is now not only possible that Trump will win the presidency, but if the GOP mobilizes correctly, it may be inevitable. As usual, the Democrats are baffled by the degree to which their rival party is willing to savage the competition in their quest for fresh power. The Republicans are at their best when they are on a clear-eyed path toward a win. Woe betide any puzzled liberal who believes redemption lies in the fantasy that Trump and the GOP won't make peace in short order. They will. Clinton needs to shortly become red of tooth and claw, with both Trump and Sanders. If she continues to rely on the fantasy of inevitability, then the global community could soon be in for a screening of "The Apprentice: Global Thermonuclear War." Ashland resident Jeffrey Gillespie is a Daily Tidings columnist, arts reviewer and freelance writer. Email him at gillespie.jeffrey @gmail.com. 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