Salena Zito in The Atlantic:  “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”

Written in April 2016, a challenging article by Emmett Rensin on Vox:

Trump capturing the nomination will not dispel the smug style; if anything, it will redouble it. Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What the fuck happened?