The right in the Anglo-sphere is in trouble. Last month, Stephen Harper's almost 10 years in power in Canada came to an end. In Britain, much to the chagrin of conservative columnists, re-elected Tory Prime Minister David Cameron has followed New Zealand's John Key along a more progressive path. Meanwhile, the replacement of Tony Abbott with the more liberal Malcolm Turnbull has led some commentators to proclaim a political realignment in Australia.

Nowhere is the crisis of conservatism more evident than in the US. At this stage – and remember we are one year out from the presidential election – the clear frontrunners for the Republican nomination are Donald Trump and Ben Carson. Neither is a political adult: they have never held elective office and they are drawn to controversy as flies are to rotting fruit. Yet, between them, the celebrity billionaire and retired neurosurgeon command about a 40-point polling lead in the party's primary field of a dozen more compelling candidates.

Illustration: John Shakespeare

Why? Because, as the distinguished Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson told me on Radio National's Between the Lines last week, they say what the party's angry conservative base wants to hear – from absolute support for gun rights to hostile opposition to immigration. Trump has warned that Mexico is "sending" criminals, including "rapists", to the US, while Carson has said the Holocaust "would have been greatly diminished" if German citizens had not been disarmed by the Nazi regime.

The rise of Trump and Carson highlights the crisis of American conservatism. It also suggests a kind of mass death wish. If the party nominates Trump, Carson or Texas senator Ted Cruz (a more polished version of these "outsiders"), the consequences would be dire. Republicans would alienate independents and moderates in a general election, not to mention a fast-growing bloc of Latino voters. And Democrats would win a third term in the White House for the first time since the 1940s.