President Donald Trump? Is he joking?

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally and picnic in Iowa. Photo / AP

Thirty-three. At time of writing that is the number, the number of candidates who have declared they are running to be the Republican candidate in the 2016 US presidential election. Therefore, potentially, logically, any one of these 33 people could be the next President of the United States, with all the power that office brings.

Usually when you've got that many people running for the same political office it is pretty easy to pick the serious contenders from the deluded and desperate. Not this time; not with the Republicans. In fact when you consider, at time of writing, that Donald Trump is leading the polls, then it is like the Republicans have managed to invert this state of affairs and have handed over the job of driving the bus to the biggest nut-bar on board.

So, I guess the question we need to ask ourselves - and America - is: is this a joke or should we be taking this seriously? I mean, wasn't the big cosmic plan meant to be that Donald declared for the presidency, we all laughed, then he said some really stupid things and then we laughed some more and then he disappeared off the bottom of the polls and went back to making money and bad reality television? That was the plan, right? I mean, rich right-wing Americans should stick to buying politicians, not being politicians, right?

Apparently not. Apparently the rules have changed. And if Trump is currently at the wheel of the crazy bus, with the wheel turned hard to the right, it seems there are plenty of other contenders shoulder-tapping him for their chance to drive.

In the wake of the movie theatre shooting in Lafayette, another Republican hopeful, Rick Perry, piped up from the back of the loony bus that it would be a good idea to allow moviegoers to take weapons into movie theatres, just in case. Sure we've all had moments where we'd like to take to the screen with an assault rifle, but isn't the best solution simply not to go to Adam Sandler films? As far as I can tell all Mr Perry's genius idea would lead to is a spike in inconsiderate-talking-related gun deaths.

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee, never a stranger to cloud cuckoo-land, hailed the Iranian nuclear deal with the classiest quote ever by saying it would march Israel "to the doors of the oven". Special. Clearly if Mike and Rick run as a ticket, US citizens will be allowed to take their nuclear weapons to any damn movie they want to see. On the upside this could end the Adam Sandler menace once and for all.

Yes, America, we who live in the sane world realise this is the part of the process where the candidates all do their little monkey dances and say the stupidest things in an attempt to rise from the pack, to get the media attention they crave. But the problems here are that: (a) the dances they're doing are frightening in their stupidity; (b) the things they are saying are really not making America look good to everyone else; and (c) when the pack is being led by the Trumpster, the rational folk who also live on this planet are unsure whether to laugh, cry, despair or invest in fallout shelters.

And what happens to the rest of us if the usually robust American political process fails to weed out the biggest weed and the American public has a massive collective brain fade in 2016 and Donald Trump becomes the 45th President of the United States? What the heck would a Trump presidency be like?

I want to try to imagine Trump as President, so I can prepare myself for the eventuality, but my brain will not let me go there. I tell it to "think Ronald Reagan" but it still will not allow me to access the horror. I try to think of Adam Sandler as President, just to get into the general ball-park, but my brain won't let me do that either. I think my brain is doing me a big favour here.

So come on, America, up your game. We know you get all sensitive when anyone who isn't American tries to tell you how to run your business, but this bunch of no-hopers, fighting to get to the bottom of the barrel in the name of democracy is really letting your side down. Hell, even picking Jeb Bush just so two people with the same last name as former Presidents can fight it out in 2016 would be better than this 33-candidate train wreck.

President Donald Trump? Seriously? With that hair? No one will ever take your country seriously ever again. So sort it out, America, because the joke isn't funny any more.

- Canvas