Conventional wisdom suggests that any “generic” Republican would easily beat Hillary Clinton in November — and any other Democrat would destroy Donald Trump.

But what if that’s wrong? Increasingly, the notion that Trump could actually win seems less absurd. As I write this, the election forecasting site FiveThirtyEight says that if the election were held today, he’d have close to a 47 percent chance of winning. It’s not crazy to theorize that Trump, with all his faults, might actually be better positioned than any traditional Republican would be.

Let me explain. For years, conservatives have lamented liberal media bias. This bias becomes even more recognizable the closer we get to Election Day. And whether it’s coverage of Hillary Clinton’s fainting flap or the re-emergence of the “birther” story, the media seems to once again have put its thumbs on the scales in favor of the Democrat.

In the past two cycles, Republicans have nominated serious candidates who were thoughtful and irenic. John McCain went so far as to correct his own supporters when they suggested in 2008 that then-Sen. Barack Obama was “an Arab.” “No, ma’am,” McCain said. “He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about.”

How did McCain’s benevolent nature benefit Republicans? “When the media got through with a good man like McCain,” writes Victor Davis Hanson in the National Review, “he was left an adulterous, confused septuagenarian, unsure of how many mansions he owned, and a likely closeted bigot.”