Friday saw the release of season four of House of Cards — which, in any normal year, would be the most interesting political soap opera on American TV. This is not a normal year. Truth is always stranger than fiction, but the Republican presidential primaries are stranger than strange.

What seemed unthinkable eight months ago now seems likely: Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for U.S. president in November. It is a sad indictment of the current political climate that somebody with no experience in politics, someone whose only qualification for public life is an unlimited fund of bombast, could be a candidate (much less a contender) for the most powerful office on the planet.

But I wonder if Trump’s ascent says more about the current state of politics and politicians generally, and U.S. politics specifically, than it does about the man himself and his many shortcomings. Because try as I might, I just can’t get a handle on him — what he wants, what he believes.

I’ve watched Trump on television over the past few months (you can’t really avoid him). Except for his racist and xenophobic immigration policy, I really don’t know what he stands for. When he speaks, it appears that he does so without notes or teleprompter. He seems to utter whatever comes into his mind, unfiltered, frequently contradicting statements he made just minutes earlier. He doesn’t seem to notice.

I know he wants to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico; I have no idea how he thinks he’s going to convince Mexico to pay for it. I know he wants to prohibit Muslim immigration; apart from that, I don’t know what his policies are. If he has any, they go unreported. I was perplexed when he did not unequivocally reject an endorsement from former Grand Wizard of the KKK, David Duke; at least that got reported.

What causes the mainstream to recoil from Trump is exactly what makes him so attractive to many Americans. Trump is not campaigning on policies — he’s campaigning on style. He is an outsider. He is anti-establishment. He wants to ‘shake things up’. “He says it like it is,” say his fans. “He says the things that need to be said.”

If politicians are not real — if politics is merely ‘show business for ugly people’ — the result will be that the loudest buffoon will be the one left standing at the end. That’s how reality TV contests work. Trump would know. If politicians are not real — if politics is merely ‘show business for ugly people’ — the result will be that the loudest buffoon will be the one left standing at the end. That’s how reality TV contests work. Trump would know.

But seriously? A reality TV billionaire? And yet, when we look at how the American media covers politics, should we be surprised?

Look at how the TV coverage is set up. The cable news networks cover the primaries like a reality TV show: split-screen, with talking heads doing analysis on one side and speech or crowd B-roll on the other. There’s always a ticker scrolling on the bottom with real-time results and a countdown clock indicating how many minutes to the next results, or how many hours to the next debate. Viewers are encouraged to participate via Twitter feeds or poll questions.

It’s infotainment, and Trump is an entertainer, first and foremost. So he thrives in that environment. Fortunately for him, the quality of his opponents allows him to thrive.

When an intelligent businesswoman like former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina finishes poorly and exits early, it’s clear that the rules have changed: The bigger the clown, the greater the chance of success. Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum — for a while there, Jeb Bush was looking moderate and saleable.

The media loves this type of circus. While a thoughtful speech on the benefits of lowering a tax by one per cent will cause viewers and producers to yawn collectively, a misogynistic Trump tweet or sleazy insult offers a ratings bonanza and supplies infinite fodder for the talking heads.

And the worst part of it all is how Trump drags down almost every other candidate to his own gutter level. The days leading up Super Tuesday saw a bizarre series of personal attacks traded between Trump and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Trump ridiculed Rubio’s perspiration and TV makeup; Rubio responded that Trump requires a full length mirror to make sure he hasn’t wetted himself. He also made a sophomoric joke about men with small hands. Mitt Romney calls out Trump as a fraud and a phony. Demonstrations at Trump rallies have turned violent.

As entertainment, it’s all very entertaining. As political discourse, it’s tragic — especially when you consider the prize. The electorate must really loathe its current flock of politicians if this is what they want. It appears a subset of Republicans crave not only a Washington outsider but someone entirely outside the normal parameters of politics.

Many in the Democratic Party also crave a political outsider — thus the Bernie Sanders phenomenon. Although Sanders has been prominent American political figure for some time, he was until recently an Independent and he shuns corporate donations and Super PACs. That’s where the comparisons end. His policies notwithstanding, Sanders is genuine and decent.

If Americans were less cynical about their politics and politicians, if they were as interested in policy as they are in colour and conflict, Donald Trump would not be winning.

Politicians have nobody to blame but themselves. Even in Canada, speechwriters, canned commentary and image consultants have turned Parliamentarians into glorified actors and the House of Commons into bad theatre. Members are assigned roles — leading parts, supporting actors and backbench extras.

If politicians are not real — if politics is merely “show business for ugly people” — the result will be that the loudest buffoon will be the one left standing at the end. That’s how reality TV contests work. Trump would know.

Republicans are building their own fragile House of Cards.

Brent Rathgeber was the Conservative MP for the riding of Edmonton—St. Albert from 2008 to 2013, when he resigned from the Conservative caucus to protest the Harper government’s lack of commitment to transparency and open government. He ran and lost in the 2015 federal election to a Conservative candidate. He is the author of Irresponsible Government: The Decline of Parliamentary Democracy in Canada.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.