I don't disagree that I have confirmation bias. Everybody has it, and maybe it is partially mitigable at best.

However, to your specific points, my tune on Trump has changed dramatically since I began reading Scott Adams. Most of what I say about Trump's master persuasion skills I pull from Adams. For sure there is confirmation bias at every point in what I see, but there is also a great deal of evidence and reason to believe Trump is the Master Persuader, as Adams puts it.

Examples: the way he took down his opponents was different than I've seen in politics, and each example fits the bill of being visceral and confirming biases voters already felt about the candidates. He crushed Bush with one statement: low energy. The claim confirms our biases that Jeb really does seem like he could use more energy, and it took away one of his greatest strengths (policy seriousness) and put him in a fight for his life against the idea that he doesn't want to be there or can't handle it. "Lyin Ted" was another top quality linguistic kill shot. Ask anybody (even me, one of Ted's biggest supporters), and they'll say Cruz looks like a sleazy car salesman. How did Trump beat him? By playing to that bias in a simple way. I recall this was something JKDS pointed out at the time, how it was crazy how Trump turned the "TrusTed" theme on its back. At the time I thought that was not correct because I guess my bias was that voters are more logical than being easily persuaded word-thinkers. But JKDS was right. "Lyin' Ted" probably won the nomination fight for Trump.

There are too many examples of Trump's top level persuasion tactics to go into them all. I guess the one I'll end on that shows he thinks about this much more deeply than people give him credit for is that the position he is in now has been manufactured for a purpose. Multitudes of voters think he's a lunatic because that's what the media has said over and over. Yet at the first debate they're all gonna see a guy who doesn't fit the media's description. All Trump has to do to win the first debate hands down is perform mediocre. Perceptual contrast is one of the first elements of persuasion covered in Cialdini's Influence, and it seems pretty clear that this has been a goal of Trump. Since he has been branded so deeply as Literally Hitler, to win the election he just has to show people that he's not Literally Hitler. It's a great position to be in for effective persuasion.