Why now?

[LAS14]

Trump has been making awful gaffes for months! Why are they suddenly being heard?

[RandySF]

1. The Trump campaign started patting down reporters.

Yes, your press poool can make you miserable if you piss them off. Same thing happened to Gore in 2000.

[NCTraveler]

2. Because everyone thought he was in primary mode.

He was only slightly batshit crazy for a Republican primary. Ends up it wasn't a strategy. It's simply Trump being Trump.

[SticksnStones]

3. The bandwagon effect

A few of them start...the rest all jump on ~

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Khan was the last straw. That's pretty much the consensus.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Media discovered they can't fake a horse race any more so they switched to "cover the train wreck".

[Kennah]

7. I'm stealing this

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Please do. I think it explains the dynamics, and I'm on record for having suggested it about a week

Please use it and I don't need credit. I'm sure I'm not the only one to think of it. The horse-race explanation for media behavior is very popular. I thought Trump might crash, so that led me to consider how and why the media might switch ratings (ad sales) strategy.

[Doctor Jack]

6. Because it won him the primaries

And the media falsely assumed that he would "pivot" and start acting normal. Every time he said something completely batshit insane, they collectively would say "hold on, this is a part of some grand strategy. Trump is playing 12 dimensional chess right now, he is going to spring the trap any second now...".

In other words, they greatly overestimated him and it took them way too long to figure out that the guy abandoning all the political norms and talking like a lunitic was brilliant, he was just a rambling lunitic.

[glennward]

8. Primary vs GE. More people are paying attention. nt

[LAS14]

10. Very interesting stuff. I'm kicking in hopes of getting some more!