Donald Trump

Christopher Buckley put it well. 'Coming to terms with Donal Trump as the Republican nominee is like being told you have Stage 1 or Stage 2 cancer. You know you will probably survive, but one way or the other, there's going to be a lot of throwing up.'

Quite.

But there is something of the Frankenstein tale about Trump and his rise to the top outflanking the entire governing class. It would not be being too cynical to say that the media has been the means by which, to paraphrase Napoleon's remark on religion 'the poor are prevented from murdering the rich in their beds.' Instead of gladiators in the coliseum, the past two generations of Americans have been fed mass entertainment on TV. In the 20th century this was pretty harmless and one way - the elites provided and the proletarians consumed and were quiet and let the elites govern and get rich.

The 21st century has been different in the content (reality TV and extremes of every sort) - in its ubiquity (TV, tablet and phone) and its abolition of deference (you can say anything to anyone). Out of this new environment has come Trump whose utter awfulness needs no fleshing out. He is the creation of a media designed to be the 'opium of people'. But instead of being a harmless entertainment, he is turning out to be the Frankenstein monster that the elites have summoned to life - but who is now devouring his creators. And they have no idea what to do about it.

It's a fascinating - and frightening - spectacle.