There is little doubt that Donald Trump is a high-risk choice for president, but there is equally little doubt that the American enterprise is at a very dangerous crossroads. He’s not the obvious choice that Romney was in 2012, although to hear the story told today you would think Romney was about on par with Obama in his negatives. So let us do a bit of weighing up the two sides of the question.

Pro

• His central slogan is “Make America Great Again”, the very antithesis of the Obama creed.
• He wants to protect the integrity of America’s borders.
• He wants to strengthen America’s national defence.
• He understands that not all potential migrants are equal.
• He understands the importance of balancing the books and is more likely than any other candidate to bring fiscal sanity back into the American economy.
• He is non-politically correct and is unafraid to say things no one else will say.
• He is unafraid of the media and gives back better than they dish it out to him.
• He can do through force of personality things that no one else could do in his place.

Con

• He is half (three-quarters?) crazy.
• He is vulgar and intemperate.
• He knows little history.
• He is unanchored to the Republican Party.
• He has had no experience in dealing with foreign policy issues.
• No one knows, least of all him, what he would really do if he won.
• His background is in business which is among the worst places for anyone in politics to try to learn the trade.
• He may make either Hillary or Bernie more electable than they otherwise would be.

You would prefer that he were more like a Tony Abbott or a Stephen Harper, but then again, where are they now, pushed aside as they were by flea-weights.

UPDATE: From today, reported on Drudge.

I don’t know if this connects with you, but it does with me. And then this:

President Obama said today that he does not believe GOP frontrunner Donald Trump will make it to the White House, but the real estate mogul took the remark as a compliment, saying Obama has done a “lousy job.”

“I continue to believe Mr. Trump will not be president,” Obama said while speaking at a press conference in Rancho Mirage, California. “And the reason is because I have a lot of faith in the American people.”

Obama told reporters he believed Americans still see the presidency as “a serious job.”

“It’s not hosting a talk show, or a reality show. It’s not promotion, it’s not marketing,” Obama said. “It’s hard and a lot of people count on us getting it right.”

Obama did not, however, answer whether he believed Trump was capable of securing the GOP nomination.

The president also took a shot at the rest of the GOP field, saying “foreign observers are troubled” by the GOP’s rhetoric, specifically the doubting of climate change and proposals to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

Trump, speaking at a campaign event in South Carolina, immediately hit back, saying Obama is doing a “lousy job.”

“He has set us back so far, and for him to actually say that is a great compliment, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said.

That Obama can still show his face in public is what makes me most fearful about the future of the US and our way of life. Sanders is not a more extreme version of what Obama stands for, only someone who is more explicit and willing to say just what he thinks.