Eliana Johnson is a fine political reporter over at National Review Online.

She writes that the GOP establishment are whispering that Trump has a shot.  This paragraph summarizes her piece:

But for Trump, a dip in the polls after the second debate that many predicted was the beginning of the end has arrested; and for nearly four months, he has remained at the top of the polls. Now, long-time GOP strategists who were expecting Trump’s act to wear thin a couple of months ago worry that he can’t be stopped, or at least that he has a significant chance of winning the nomination.

She quotes one establishment figure after the other, saying he could pull it out, against all odds.

Here are some of the reasons he won't win the nomination.

First, he is a shallow media creation, and his time will run out.  His latest quagmire about who's to blame for 9/11 is one example of why in January and February voters will turn against him, has he echoes the Dems' talking points.

Another reason why he won't win is that right now the polls are junk.  Just think back to the 2014 elections.  Remember how Mitch McConnell was going down in defeat?  Eventually pollsters will have to come up with better methods.  His numbers are higher than everyone else's because the news media pay the most attention to him.  Why is that?  He makes good copy, but also because they know he is their best shot for the Dem victory in November 2016.  They believe he won't tin (and he won't, either).

Still another reason: people aren't paying attention right now, despite the high ratings in the first two GOP debates.  Were there 23-25 million viewers?  Great.  How many people voted in 2012?  Around 120 million.

The most important point in Johnson's piece is that Trump has no ground game:

And while Trump is beginning to make traditional campaign expenditures and build a ground game in the early-voting states, he is spending less on these measures and undertaking them later than other campaigns, which have been putting the gears in motion for the past year or longer. Typically, in caucus states such as Iowa and Nevada, these sorts of political fundamentals matter. But Trump has already defied supposedly immutable laws of politics.

The last line is key.  "Immutable laws of politics."  Trump won't defy them.  From this over-the-top media coverage, he really believes he's so awesome that he doesn't need a ground game.

The final reason that I believe Trump won't win the nomination is my own deeply held conviction.  He is not destined to win the White House, for it's too historic and sacred for an egomaniac.  Rather, his destiny is to cause confusion and chaos in the elections.  His billion dollars will keep him in the race to the bitter end.  When (not if) he doesn't win it, watch out. 

But maybe that's what America deserves – a good old-fashioned shaking, since she's been slouching towards Gomorrah and thumbing her nose at moral law that breaks the lawbreaker, not the law itself.

The sad truth is, if hypothetically and only in one's imagination Trump were to win the nomination, he would easily be defeated by a weakened Hillary (or another Dem nominee if she's indicted) because he scares away voters – e.g., the Hispanic vote and people like me.  You can't win without those pesky voters.

America, we can do better than Trump and any Dem nominee, whether Hillary or someone else.  At least I hope we can do better.  If not, then we've lost the country morally and culturally.

James Arlandson has been teaching for years and has written a supernatural historical fiction about his ancestor and the seventeenth-century real founding of America: Will Clayton: Founder, Quaker, and Demon Breaker.  His website is Live as Free People, which is updated almost daily.