How can the United States of America be even contemplating electing Donald Trump? I just watched the highlights of last night’s debate with growing astonishment: it was like I was watching a sketch from a satirical comedy show. Trump’s behaviour, for one, was horrifying. There are certain amounts of decorum and respect one expects from candidates – modes of behaviour which have become the norm. Yet Trump seems to think that such norms don’t apply to him, and that he is above them. Hence he interrupts, talks over people, and makes comments to the audience. I think that is his strategy, though: he seems to want to cast himself as an outsider; a person from outside the normal political sphere, for whom the normal rules do not apply. Thus he makes asides about everyone ganging up on him, as if to present himself as a victim, standing up to the elites.

Scratch the surface of this trickery, though, and it’s clear he’s woefully ill-equipped to lead the most powerful country on earth. Imagine that, if he was elected, Trump was to use the same tactics he used last night at the united nations or some other international forum? Talking over everyone, sneering, acting as though the rules did not apply to him. There would be total outrage. Last night, while Mrs. Clinton was trying to give more substantial answers to her questions, trump was talking over her, sneering, making comments, and generally behaving like a schoolboy. If he behaved like that when negotiating with international competitors, say Russia or China, and I despair to think what the consequences would be. Surely, then, America can’t be realistically contemplating electing this joke.