A friend said to me today, “I haven’t seen anything from you in the paper for a while. Have you given up?

My friend is right. I haven’t done a column in a while, but it’s not because I’ve given up so much as it is whether or not there’s anything new to say. This presidential campaign seems to be careening inexorably to a conclusion that, one way or the other, is probably already determined.

When I say “already determined,” I’m talking about things like demographics and voting bases on both sides whose choices are already firmly made. When I say that, I’m not buying into the narrative that the whole thing is rigged. To me, such claims are intended to provide a soft place to land should things go badly. “I didn’t lose, the election was stolen!” Chuckle all you want about Al Gore founding the Internet, but he had much greater cause to make such a claim when he pulled a half million more votes than George W. Bush, but lost the presidential race. Give Al credit. When the Supreme Court intervened and pulled the plug, he reacted with grace. He did not go ballistic, questioning the legitimacy of the outcome and, by inference, the legitimacy of the Bush presidency. The good of the country – and the continuation of George Washington’s grand dream of peaceful transfer of power – was more important than his personal loss.

I rather doubt that the current candidate making the most noise about “rigged” elections would react with similar restraint. I think it more likely he would yelp like a scalded cat about how he was robbed, regardless of the damage that might be done to the legitimacy of the winning candidate, or the country itself. I have the impression that, to this candidate, personal success is paramount, with the good of the country being a secondary consideration.

I have tried to get my head around the Trump phenomenon, but have been unable to do so.

Where his supporters extol his straight talk, I see a loose cannon. Where his unpredictability is proclaimed a virtue, I foresee a significant destabilizing effect on the world stage. I hear people touting the fact he is a businessman, and I think of the people who got stiffed when he escorted his businesses through multiple bankruptcies – as he, by his own account, made significant money while doing so. I look at the folks supporting him. To paraphrase Mr. Trump, most are good folks with only a relatively few crazies mixed in. I think to myself, “What am I missing? Is it me who’s got it wrong?” Then I watch him mugging for the cameras or, with a straight face, making statements that are so patently false as to be laughable. Nope, I had it right in the first place. But to his supporters, it makes no difference. I think it should, and I am mystified when it doesn’t.

I don’t understand the differing standards applied to the two candidates. If Trump can read a speech off a teleprompter without some egregious gaff, the speech is counted a success. If he does say something outrageous, well, that’s just Donald being Donald. Isn’t he just precious? His opponent, on the other hand, has her pronouncements put under a microscope because, by reason of her experience, she is not given the benefit of the doubt. It seems there is a penalty for knowing whereof you speak.

Hey, given the stakes, between precocious amateur and a battle-scarred professional, I’ll take the pro every time.

Why is it that a Breitbart, a Judicial Watch – or any of the other outfits on the record as being dedicated to eviscerating Trump’s opponent – can leak negative allegations and have a good chunk of the national media rush off hot on the scent of potential scandal? We’re not talking innocent until proven guilty; we’re talking guilty until proven otherwise. Even when proven otherwise, there remains an implication that something is rotten in Denmark and if not this, then something else. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, Trump’s foundation can make an (illegal) $25,000 donation to the Florida attorney general who, four days later, announces she will not be investigating charges of fraud against an allegedly fraudulent Trump University – and the news causes hardly a ripple? This after a similar donation had been made to the Texas attorney general, who likewise declined to open an investigation into the same Trump University? This after The Donald has accused his opponent of practicing “pay for play” while having spent a significant part of the primary season bragging about how easily he could manipulate politicians by using precisely the same tactics.

So I am perplexed.

Again, maybe it is me who’s got it all wrong – as I’m sure someone will point out on this page in the next few days. Having said it all before, how to say it again without being repetitive?

There is a danger is crying “Wolf!” too often. But just because you hold your peace for a while doesn’t mean the wolf isn’t still at the door.