The entire commentariat is going to feel a little silly when Marco Rubio wins every Republican primary.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) September 25, 2015
Not to pick on Douthat (not that there's anything wrong with doing that of course) but the elite opinion denial of Trump was hilarious. No one was inevitable given the clown car of 17, but going by the numbers (or THE MATH as people who can't count call it), Trump got ahead in the polls and stayed there almost without exception. There was never any good data-based reason to think it would be anyone but Trump, and while this is less provable, there wasn't much theater criticism feeling it at you pundit justification for it either. Why Rubio? I have no idea why so many people thought the charisma-less boy blunder would come out on top. A bunch of old white people thinking "the kids will love us too if we have our very own minority!" was about the only motivation I could think of.