OPINION - This crackpot US presidential election would be funny if it weren’t sinister

If the 2024 presidential election was a television series we would say it had jumped the shark by now — reached the point of such incredulity as to have lost the plot. The characters are all at each other’s throats. Donald Trump is behaving like a spoilt mean girl, posting “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” on social media, while a crazed gunman is lurking for 12 hours with an AK-47 in the bushes at his Florida golf club, hoping to succeed where an earlier would-be assassin had failed. Switching gears, Trump goes into full Churchillian mode and thunders: “I will NEVER SURRENDER!”