Blood on American streets? I doubt it

I've had the chance to spend time at a couple of Trump events this week. By and large, the people I met were cheerful, kind, (mostly white) middle class Americans.

It's pretty unthinkable that the elderly veteran from Chicago or the nice couple from upstate New York will take up bayonets and charge Pennsylvania Avenue baying for blood if Clinton is elected.

I just don't see it. It's the difference between a few loud people saying incendiary things and the mass of people actually acting on those words. And the gulf between those is wide.

It's true that almost two-thirds of Trump supporters believe the election is rigged.

But I think what conservatives are really saying is that they believe, and have done for a long time, that the cards of democracy are stacked against them.

They don't get a fair hearing. It's why Trump's cry that the press is crooked resonates.

At the rally I went to in Orlando, the now routine heckling of the press pen was more good natured than threatening.

But there was one guy near us who was genuinely furious at the media and yelled repeatedly that journalists are all biased.

This isn't new. Social conservatives have a long held distrust of journalists, who they believe to be overwhelmingly liberal.

A veteran American reporter proudly told me of the cap he keeps with the slogan: "Annoy the press, re-elect Bush." He got it from the campaign of the FIRST President Bush, not the second.

One Trump supporter recently told me 80% of the press is Democrat. There is no evidence to support the claim, but it's true many journalists for the New York Times and the Washington Post and the major TV networks live in a different world from more conservative rural America.

They tend to be based in cities, and urban areas here are more liberal than rural areas. In LA, New York, Boston, Chicago and DC, there's not a lot of sympathy for gun rights or abortion control - issues people on the right do care about.

Journalists are part of an elite that, in 2016, faces distrust from voters in lots of countries.

The anger at the crooked media, the crooked pollsters, the crooked politicians and the crooked banks is more intense this year than before.

And Trump deliberately fuels the fury, but that doesn't mean it will lead to post-election revolution.

The gap between the bravado and the reality may best be summed up by a tweet this week from Joe Walsh, a former congressman from Illinois and now a conservative radio host.

Mr Walsh tweeted "On November 8th, I'm voting for Trump. On November 9th, if Trump loses, I'm grabbing my musket."

Before liberals hyperventilate that Mr Walsh is inciting civil war; calm down, most of the muskets in America belong to museums or historical enactment enthusiasts.