Reasons why I think Donald Trump will be President of the USA

What do you think?

After all these months, despite all his bombast, lies, insults, vain boasts, evasions and general loathsomeness, he’s within touching distance of Clinton. Over that time, Clinton’s lead has narrowed.

There’s a mood among enough electors – as in the UK – not only to tolerate but welcome anyone who will stick two fingers up at the system. Yes, Trump lies and veritably pumps bullshit, but we know when he does it because we see him doing it. With ‘them’ we never know one way or the other. Clinton is stuck with being one of ‘them’.

So it doesn’t really matter if she thrashes Trump – which she did – in presidential debates. To humiliate him (and the first debate was – or should have been – a humiliation) just makes him more like one of us. His incoherence of thought and rage are ours too. The first debate seems to have had no benefit for Clinton. Amazing – but true.

OK, Trump isn’t really one of us, but that doesn’t matter. He speaks for us, that’s all – but that’s enough. When was a president ever one of us? Might he be our mouthpiece as much as we are his voting fodder?

The demagogues of the first half of the 20^th century are distant and possibly unknown to many. Examples from history don’t wash. We might as well fear the Spanish Inquisition.

Trump will tread on the fingers of anyone lower on the ladder than us to make sure they can’t overtake us. We don't think that's one of his lies because we know he craves to do it.

We are modern consumers, not just in the marketplace but in politics and in our relations with the state, right down to tax and welfare. We've become spoilt for choice. Even brand loyalty is now dead: like Trump, in our lives we move from deal to deal and have to squeeze juice from the driest of apples. When Trump boasts that he's “smart” to pay as little tax as possible, that doesn’t repel us. And it’s irrelevant that Obama, a visibly fine and decent man, won two terms as president.

We are isolated from one another in everything but our fear – in that, we are a rock.

As did the Leave campaign in the UK’s referendum in June, Trump will get the non-voters, the angry and the gullible out on the day, and with the trenches apparently dug with a 2- to 4-point margin in Clinton’s favour, that can swing it the other way.

Let’s stop hoping that the old rules apply. They don’t.