Why Trump is NOT scaring most people

Richard Fernandez points out the obvious.  The Obama Presidency has broken all the old, unwritten rules that allowed the government to work without invoking the nuclear option: impeachment.   In the old days if a President couldn't get congress to pass a law that he wanted the policy wasn't implemented.  No longer.

Barack Obama has done plenty of damage to the country, but perhaps the worst is his determined destruction of Washington’s guardrails. Mr. Obama wants what he wants. If ObamaCare is problematic, he unilaterally alters the law. If Congress won’t change the immigration system, he refuses to enforce it. If the nation won’t support laws to fight climate change, he creates one with regulation. If the Senate won’t confirm his nominees, he declares it in recess and installs them anyway.

Official Washington won't utter the words "impeachment" because Republicans fear being called racists and Democrats - as the party of the Left - is OK with dictatorship as long as it's their dictatorship. Nixon would have survived Watergate if Republicans had had the kind of party-above-country position as Democrats.

The simultaneous proclivity for personalistic leadership in Trump, Hillary and Obama is probably a rational poll driven response to a perceived failure of the rules. Strassel argues that the really worrisome trend is that voters are willing to set aside the rules as long as they get results.

The more outrageous Mr. Trump is, the more his numbers soar. The more Mrs. Clinton promises to cram an agenda down the throats of her “enemies,” the more enthusiastic her base. The more unrestrained the idea, the more press coverage; the more ratings soar, the more unrestrained the idea. The humble candidates—those with big ideas, but with respect for order and honor—are lost to the shouting.

Perhaps the "humble candidates—those with big ideas, but with respect for order and honor" are in the wrong saloon. The order and system that used to make "big ideas" work are temporarily inoperative. The world is in a state of transposition. It is waiting for an event, a man, a technology -- a something -- that can make the road from out of this dead end. That requires a skillset that most Western politicians don't have. Because voters sense that politics is in flux past experience as a professional public servant is deprecated. In a situation where past organizational knowledge is regarded as a liability, a businessman can be as good as an ex-First Lady. Trump may not have what it takes; the danger for many of his rivals is the public know they don't have what it takes.

In the old days I would have preferred Ted Cruz rather than Donald Trump.  Cruz is cerebral  and a great debater.  But today we need a brawler to lead the counter-revolution.  But there's a lot of talent in the Republican line-up to fill all the cabinet posts.