How is it possible that between July and September of this preposterous election year a candidate as clearly unfit for the Presidency as Donald Trump, who trailed significantly in the polls all summer, giving rise to the expectation that sanity shall prevail in November, has managed to catch up and just might win?

Here’s how: The Click-Bait Factor. He’s got it and Clinton does not.

The cumulative effect of clicking on the name Trump for over a year has created a body politic with a conditioned response, one that is beginning to register in the polls masquerading as a political opinion.

The cumulative effect of clicking on the name Trump for over a year has created a body politic with a conditioned response, one that is beginning to register in the polls masquerading as a political opinion. Regardless of what you think about the candidate, the name—the word alone—has become a prompt. Trump:

Click!

There, we have put our finger on it. There is no escaping trump as a continually recycling icon that has virtually branded this election cycle. See trump anywhere in the media, you select it. For the purpose of this article whether you click, tap, touch the screen or drag a cursor, or press a channel selector that amounts to the same thing: clicking. As if you have the choice. Everyday, many times a day, clicking trump delivers the latest outrage, reaction to the outrage, then response to the reaction and then comes the reaction to the response by professional pundits, editors and talking heads who assess and repudiate and predict he has finally gone too far this time and will lose support, yes, his campaign has tanked. And then the cycle repeats and memories fade.

Combine The Click-Bait Factor with touch-screen voting and . . .

Now do you begin to see the problem?

Even if you punch chads, pull a lever, jab an InkaVote stylus, or use any other method in the voting booth besides a touch-screen machine, you are still susceptible to acquiescing to the invisible imperative of the click-bait factor.

Oh, but I exaggerate, you say, since I am an alarmist. You admit to thoughtlessly clicking trump all these months just like everybody else, for we have all been set up, consciously or not by the media. But you remain dismissive about this in any way affecting your decision on Election Day; the impact will be negligible. Not me, you say, for I am an intelligent voter, the possessor of a considered opinion. Anyway, only a fool can’t tell the difference between selecting a president for a four-year term and green lighting a fantasy series about an unhinged business tycoon and former reality-show celebrity playing at being the president. Stay positive! There is not enough click-bait out there to deliver this election to such a man.

If I may answer my Straw Man spouting common-wisdom: I’m not talking about a nebulous and insulting category called fools. I’m talking about a real and measurable category of undecided voters. As of this writing, they appear likely to swing this election one way or the other. It may not take a large percentage of them, either. Imagine if you will, stepping into the voting booth with one of these people suffering from cognitive dissonance over their selection. Upon scanning the names of presidential candidates on the screen or cardboard ballot, ask your self this question: What is the simplest and quickest method to resolve my moment of truth here?

Click!

And then rationalize selecting him later. Because, as I said at the top, Trump has the click-bait factor and Clinton does not.

Not even if you take John Oliver’s advice and change the name back to its original incarnation as Drumpf can its power as a prompt be diffused; it’s too late. To the autonomic reptilian region of your brain, Drumpf equals Trump. Click!

We can expose it, though. Consider it done by this article. The Click-Bait Factor is now a known unknown, whereas before it flew entirely under the radar. The polls and surveys will continue to miss it since it is immeasurable, although its impact can be inferred by Trump’s recent rise in them.

It’s the ratings, stupid! Right?

Close. The mechanism by which those ratings translate into votes in the real media-saturated world is the click-bait factor, which is far more pervasive and insidious because it affects everyone to one degree or another. It is even more powerful and hard to detect than ‘the underground voter’—those people who won’t admit to pollsters they plan to vote for Trump, which was gleefully announced by the Trump team last month as the reason he shall prevail Bexit fashion in November. That crowd, despite their craven malicious silence, is still part of the general electorate who probably won’t be affected by the click-bait factor; it is the undecided voters who are the most susceptible.

Then again, the habit is so strong for some people they may click the name in error. “Oops! I meant to vote for Clinton (or Stein or Johnson), but for some weird reason my finger tapped ‘Trump’.” Far-fetched, I know. But will that voter be able to get another ballot? Or would that be voting twice?

However the focus remains on those primed to succumb: the uncertain. Which is exactly what the Trump camp is hoping to generate, uncertainty. The name of the game is to create as much confusion and in the body politic as possible while simultaneously remaining at the top of the twitter feed each day and, in general, to continue dominating the news. Those voters—the suckers, for every con man needs them to prosper–will have other reasons to explain their ‘choice’ to an exit-poll canvasser. None will admit to their habit by saying (at the very least) they just couldn’t face a four-year period of intense withdrawal under Hilary; the boredom would be insufferable—at least Trump is entertaining.

Yes, far more of our fellow Americans are enjoying the show rather than depressed and saddened by it, not to mention made anxious. They aren’t alarmed? This is alarming! And maddening. I, for one, eagerly await Election Day as an opportunity to finally cancel Trump. It may be our last chance. Now, there is a powerful Alt-Click for you: Cancel Trump!

The Alarmist