On this evening before “Super Tuesday” in the nomination process for the GOP’s presidential standard bearer, Donald Trump is poised to do very well in his noisy campaign to win the nomination. This despite his single-handed disruption and degradation of virtually all of the GOP candidates’ debates and their aftermath by an adroit use of vitriolic, banal, juvenile invective; flamboyant claims; provocative, invidious innuendos; and relentless personal pique. Trump presents as a 6-foot 2-inch Little Lord Fauntleroy in a natty business suit with expensively coiffed hair and an amazingly elastic face.

But, far from alienating the mass of Republican primary voters, his performances as agent provocateur extraordinaire have paid off handsomely in terms of electoral support and endorsements. He is a snide and snarling whirlwind who threatens to upend the GOP’s nomination process in record time and later hand the general election in November to the equally repugnant Hillary Clinton. If, indeed, he were actually a paid agent of Madame Clinton’s, hired covertly to wreck the candidacies of all serious-minded contenders for the GOP nomination, he could scarcely be acting any more effectively in clearing the field of opponents. He is the ultimate insider who is adeptly masquerading as the American people’s “UnCandidate”, a supposedly untainted, non-politician instrument for solving the discontents of the common man and woman in our nation. A Svengali Lincoln in Hugo Boss attire.

This should all be grounds for great despair. How is it that so many Americans are being gulled by such a shallow peacock, a celebrity showman who speaks so brashly and harshly — and then so often brazenly backtracks when called out on his lame excuses, misrepresentations, and vacuous rhetoric? His is a story that would seem to reflect the state of our Republic, sad to say, where the public’s attraction to “bread and circuses” is rapidly and rabidly displacing reasoned, intelligent discourse; fundamental civility; and dialogue on meaningful, substantive policy positions and distinctions. It casts into serious doubt whether any sane, sensible, sober-minded constitutional conservative can win the Presidency of the United States in this era. As a dedicated political activist in Colorado wrote to me earlier this week:

I believe we are now in a position where there are not enough Conservatives in America to elect a Conservative as president. If we think on the number of “true” Conservatives we know personally, the number is vanishingly small, and, if we extrapolate that number to the whole country, I think it is clear the numbers are just not there to elect a Conservative.

It would appear that a scenario is unfolding whose ultimate aim is to ensure the election of Hillary Clinton as president, despite her remarkable, longstanding profile as a scandal-plagued, criminally corrupt, cynical neoMarxist who manages to evade any accountability for her rank incompetence and obsessive power lust. Whether the Donald is really a Trojan horse for Hillary or just a chronically spoiled, over-indulged, and entitled parvenu working on his own self-aggrandizing behalf cannot be determined at this time. It certainly bears some responsible investigating, of course.

The overall net effect, however, of Trump’s “circus act” is now easily foreseeable: It will serve, first, to clear the Republican stage of all truly conservative, moderate-tempered, and experienced candidates (at this time, only Ted Cruz and John Kasich qualify here) and then, second, when facing Hillary, present itself as so outrageous and mortifying that it will be unmercifully -– and quite facilely — unmasked and savaged by the Democrats’ seasoned team of diligent “oppo” (for “opposition”) researchers, savvy operatives, and ideological allies throughout the major media.

A majority of the general American electorate will then do its expected part, in response, by recoiling in revulsion from such a mad, rapacious troll as Trump will be painted to be and allowing itself to be dissuaded from maintaining any undermining concerns about any of Hillary’s character, capability, competence, caution, or credibility. And so, a veritable American queen will be crowned in January 2017, a modern blend of Catherine the Great and Marie Antoinette. And, soon thereafter, most Americans will no longer be eating so much cake (it results in climate change, doncha know?), but rather crow instead. Raw and bitter every day, too.