Having contact with reality is quite important when critical moments arise. Fantasy can proper you quite high, but there is a breaking point where it can't carry the day. Trump & Co are both post-truth and detached for reality. I am a bit scared for your country when you get a post-truth populist that is NOT detached from reality. If you can't deal with a buffoon like Trump, how will you be able to deal with someone who is half competent? Truth be told, I don't know how to deal with these people.

Not that my country fared any better with this kind of rhetoric in last couple of years. But we don't have the democratic tradition as rich as you had (or at least I felt you had). I feel like despair will be the feeling for me this decade.

It's a good question. His supporters like the buffoonery. It allows them to see what they want to in his actions. It's remarkable that he has the full-throated support of the theocrats while being blatantly an atheist. And conversely he has surrounded himself with people who clearly hate Christianity, but gloss over his pandering to the religious right.

That wouldn't be possible if he were any smarter. Nor is he a Boris Johnson type character, playing the clown while being quite well educated in private.

The right wing coalition will survive and thrive even without him. But it's hard to predict just how, because it will have to adapt.