it all turns on the following question: does the media cover elections, or does the media decide elections? if you take the latter perspective, and you're donald trump right now, you have to realize that the number one problem you have in front of you is that you're not the establishment candidate. so, you don't have establishment money on your side. so you don't have establishment media on your side. so, you're basically fucked, because that's what decides elections. the way you see the outcome from this perspective is obvious: clinton, msnbc and cnn gang up on him to beat him into the ground, while fox continues to spurn out punchlines for late night tv (and trump no doubt doesn't help himself, either).
it seems to contradict the narrative: he won because he's the anti-establishment. but, that was the primary. and i don't think it's true, anyways: he didn't control the outside, he controlled the center. so, the proper way to adjust is actually to go after the center in the general - which means becoming the establishment. and, i would claim that he already committed to this tactic several weeks ago.
so, you can argue that it's going to mean he's throwing away the sanders vote. really. like that was ever serious. i've argued it's his only real tactic, but it's based on the idea that he just doesn't have any space to operate on hillary's right. it's too narrow a spectrum. of course, if he can somehow knock her off the pedestal and out of being the establishment candidate then he gains the spoils - he gets the media. so, he wins. how, exactly, he thinks he's going to manage this while carrying through with his other ideas is hard to parse, of course. but what it exposes is the tactical impossibility that he really faces.
....meaning that it might seem like he's throwing away his advantage on the surface, but what he's really doing is cutting his losses and going all in. risky, but high reward - and not dumb. he just doesn't have good options.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdeUL2a2ZPw