What happens when you try to take Trump seriously?

trump

Andy Kroll tried, and emerged with a darkly humorous account of its essential impossibility: beyond soundbites about Mexicans and business, there is virtually nothing to see.

Political reporters are programmed to cover presidential candidates in a rigidly specific way. Present them with a purple-state governor or an ambitious young U.S. senator, and they can perform admirably. Drop in an aberration like Donald Trump—a sort of pseudo-candidate who defiantly knows nothing about the very issues he's running on and who openly mocks the accepted customs and niceties of American campaigns—and they don't know how to react, how to recalibrate.

Plenty of people do, though. See that GIF? I eat out on that GIF.