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A Fox News poll suggests Trump is trailing Clinton by 10 percentage points.

After all, why go all 60 Minutes on someone who wouldn’t even survive the primaries?

It wasn’t until the underdog began to growl about walls and rapists from Mexico and a ban on Muslim immigration that the tone of that coverage changed. Not in depth, of course. But there was probably less giggling at press conferences as Trump made it clear he meant every word of what he said and the polls suggested he was in an increasingly viable position to win the nomination.

Trump’s conduct during the Republican debates also made it clear he didn’t care what his opponents, the media or his own party thought of him. And even if the laughter had now nearly died away completely , it couldn’t be denied Trump was still giving great quote, still ensuring he and his campaign led the newscasts.

Fast forward to right here and right now, to the moment I’m writing this column and well aware that by the time it’s posted Thursday morning some new disaster may well befall Trump’s campaign, a campaign that up until three weeks ago had been rolling along impervious to criticism or controversy.

No longer are critics talking about Trump’s qualifications for office, they’re talking,quite literally, about his sanity. While reports from the campaign trail usually provide a resume of whistle stop speeches and policy they now detaila dailylitany of gaffes and missteps, any one of which would doom the political aspirations of any other candidate.

Some might argue the beginning of the political end for Trump (and don’t kid yourself, the end has begun) occurred when he decided to pick a fight with the Muslim parents of a U.S. soldier killed in action in Iraq. Others might contend that between U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama’s speechat the Democratic National Convention last month, and her husband’s subsequent (and apparently unprecedented) call for Republicans to disavowTrump because the latter is “unfit” to be president, a consensus was formed on both sides of the U.S. political spectrum that the joke had gone on for far too long. To be sure, several high profile Republicans have already disowned Trump, but othershave added they’ll vote for Hillary Clinton, and chances are they’ll be joined by more party members before this week is out.