Donald Trump is running a scam. We all know that. Last week, Trump acknowledged his anti-political-correctness persona is a theatrical schtick:

Trump acknowledging the act: “When I’m president, I’m a different person. I can be the most politically correct person you’ve ever seen.”

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 23, 2016

Late last week, Trump was in Las Vegas bragging about his ability to cut deals with Democrats and praising Reagan’s 1986 amnesty bill as a model of deal-making.  

He signed on with Iowa Governor Terry Branstad in supporting the Ethanol Lobby. Even without going back into his history of supporting eminent domain for personal gain, etc., etc., Trump has been the quintessential member of the Establishment. Trump owes an immense amount of money to just about every bank there is. And the Establishment has concluded that Trump is someone they can work with. Now that Ted Cruz has started linking him to the Establishment, Trump is on the defensive. He has a new ad out, called “Establishment,” which relies upon suspension of disbelief and disregard for your own lyin’ eyes to be believable:        

TRANSCRIPT: TRUMP: The establishment, the media, the special interests, the lobbyists, the donors, they’re all against me. I’m self-funding my campaign. I don’t owe anybody anything. I only owe it to the American people to do a great job. They are really trying to stop me. Everybody knows it. Everybody sees it. We’re going to win. We’re going to win it for the people. We’re going to win it for out country. We’re going to make America great again.

The only way this ad is plausible is if you disregard everything Trump has said about himself and everything the Establishment has said about him. This takes us back to his statement over the weekend