How did it come to this?

The U.S. election has always been Hillary Clinton’s to lose, and the mess she has made of her campaign has given Trump a shot.

Nate Silver is One of the top political forecasters in the United States.

His latest election model shows Donald Trump now has a one in three chance of winning in November.

The races in the swing states are tightening. It is truly terrifying.

It still baffles me, and no doubt many others, how a celebrity reality TV star is still in the race for the U.S. presidency.

The truth no longer matters.

Trump says whatever he wants whether it is true or not. It doesn't matter. Many Americans have lost their sense of reason.

George Orwell foresaw the future in his classic novel 1984 where war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.

There is truth and untruth.

It is the politics of unaccountability. Overt racism is applauded. Women are denigrated. Anyone different is suspect.

It is white America at its worst. The Republican party has been hijacked by the angry mob carrying pitchforks.

As the former governor of Florida Charlie Crist quipped. “I didn't leave the Republican Party, It left me.”

Conservatism and racism have become one.

 

Trump is a vulgarian whose mantra is Make America Great Again.

He means back to a time when white American men of a certain age were the only rulers.

His running mate is Mike Pence, an anti-abortion hard-liner who would limit women's right to choose.

Pence appeared on CNN and refused to call a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan “deplorable.”

Pence says gays should not marry because it is not God’s idea of marriage.

Pence also called being gay a choice.

 

It is absurd when the lord of Celebrity Apprentice hands over his medical records to Dr. Oz, a daytime TV star who prefers to ignore science in favour of miracle cures.

Then there is Russia.

Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin, arguably one of the most dangerous men in the world, is worrisome on so many levels.

Then there is his suggestion that the gun crowd might want to “take care” of Clinton.

There is his claim that Barack Obama is the founder of Isis.

 

George Orwell also said that the further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.

Most Canadians, I believe, are watching all of this unfold as if watching a train wreck.

It’s awful, it’s bloody and it’s too close to home, because when the elephant sneezes we catch a cold.

But we should not be smug.

After all we had Rob Ford and his appeal to angry voters.

 

One of the most effective advertising campaigns in political history was from Ronald Reagan's re-election campaign from, ironically, 1984.

"It's morning again in America. Today more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country's history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years."

The campaign simply became known as "It's Morning Again in America."

The message was positive and forward-looking, and agree or disagree, it was true to the values of the Republican Party.

Now 32 years later, it is no longer morning.

It is midnight in America.