The Shape of the General Election, about Eight Months from November

I’ve read almost a half-dozen stories this morning with what feels like an explosion of updated and new reporting about the unvarnished racism and excessive authoritarianism of the Republican Party.

1)  Trump declining to disavow support by the KKK, on one Sunday morning show, and claiming he doesn’t know who David Duke is on another. About both, he told interviewers he has to consider the matter before deciding if he’ll condemn them, or not, accept their support, or not.
2) Then there’s the reminder that Rep Scalise of Louisiana, third in leadership in the House, modeled his political appeal on Duke’s popularity in the state with white nationalists, which Scalise has even conceded (He said in an early campaign, “I’m like David Duke, without the baggage.” Sorry, guy, not true anymore.)
3) I can’t leave out the revelations that Trump spoke approvingly of the Chinese government’s 1989 crackdown in Tianamen Square, praising it for being a “strong” response.
4) Nor omit the Republican frontrunner’s penchant for retweeting Mussolini quotes, which Gawker pranked him in to doing this morning.
So I have a question about all this:
If the Republicans’ racism and authoritarianism are this plain eight months before the general election—with the public and media increasingly aware of them, especially on a day like this, when it seems to have really broken through the media’s invincible shield—what is the general election going to look like in November? As I’ve written previously on this blog, I believe there will be No “‘Etch-a-Sketch’ Moment” for Donald Trump, not after the most extreme primary campaign in my voting lifetime. (I began voting in 1976, when I got to vote for Jimmy Carter over Pres Ford). Democrats have lost some and won some over those years, so I fear anything’s possible, but really, the Republicans have run the most extreme primary campaign in my lifetime, perhaps in American history, and I don’t believe they can plausibly tack to the center after this—even if they want to—for that is the place, like or not, where most US elections are eventually won. That is where the Democrats will be, with a majority of the nation behind them.