In reply to Pete Pozman:
The trouble is, he isn't an imbecile.
He's a very dangerous narcissist with an uncanny knack for manipulating others - he promises them the world and will deliver nothing, other than apparent validation of some of humanities more base instincts and prejudices.
He has no policies to speak of (or at least, he has a few ill-formed ideas with no plan of how to enact them) and doesn't really mind, because the coverage is mostly about him, so the lack of coherent plans is easily overlooked by many.
He's a deeply unpleasant, duplicitous, manipulative individual with the attitudes of an angry adolescent and less self-control. Which shouldn't matter if he wasn't in the running for the post of the most important person on the planet politically.
I think we should be very afraid, especially as his rise is at least partly a result of the alienation of a large swathe of society in the US, not dissimilar to that seen in the UK in June, and in France, Germany etc. It might be we are going to hell in a handcart, but for almost exactly the opposite reasons to those usually given by those who tell us we are all off to hell in a handcart....
If he wins, he thinks he will get to play with all the toys - although as mentioned above, thankfully he won't be permitted to get up to too much trouble without a huge and bullish Republican backing - which he currently doesn't have.
b