I'm not the type who needs to fall in love with a candidate to vote for them. Voting for me is a pretty pragmatic thing. Who mirrors what I believe in? Who do I believe will be the best leader? Whose policies do I stand for?

Barack Obama's candidacy might have been the one time where those questions were answered and I loved the guy. I don't expect for that to happen again in my lifetime, whether I vote for Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton in the primary. (Yes, I'm still undecided on that.)

I'm also in the minority, as this Face the Nation preview with Stephen Colbert indicates. When you've got Colbert applauding Trump's ability to stir the emotions of people and override the "party machine," it's a little bit sad.

"There's a populism to Trump that I found very appealing," Colbert told "Face the Nation" moderator John Dickerson in an interview that will be broadcast this Sunday. "The party elders would like him to go away but the people have decided that he is not going to."

"I may disagree with anything that he's saying and think that his proposals are a little...well, more than a little shocking," Colbert added. "But there is something really hopeful about the fact that, well, 36 percent of the likely voters want him so the people in the machine don't get to say otherwise. That's the one saving grace, I think, of his candidacy."

"There sounded like there's a little bit of Trump respect in you for his ability to channel the populist," Dickerson told Colbert.

And if he admires the idea of bucking the party machine, why not make mention of Bernie Sanders, who is also out there with his populist message and managing not to stir up a lot of hatred and bigotry all at the same time? Why not mention the candidate who is actually raising populist enthusiasm with real, honest-to-God policy ideas?

I'll let Digby do some talking for me here.

What if it isn’t that these angry working class whites are attracted to Trump because he’s giving voice to their economic problems at all, whether by offering some vague notion of “making America great again” or telling them their problems are caused by undocumented workers? What if their “anxiety” is really just about simple racism — the fact that people they believe are inferior to them are becoming equal in society?

It's Colbert's style of magical thinking that pretended Reagan wasn't part of the "party machine" when he was entrenched in it. Somehow racist dog whistles get translated into "bucking the party system" instead of what they really are.

CBS will be airing the entire Stephen Colbert interview on Sunday, December 27th.