If these polls are wrong, it would undermine most of the wisdom built up about the American political system for the past few decades. It would suggest that not only the polling companies' methods but the whole political establishment is now grievously mistaken about what the American people actually want and what they will do to get it.

But if they are right, then the 2016 election may prove the high water mark for anti-establishment outsiders like Donald Trump. It would suggest that populist candidates of Left and Right may do well in the primaries, but that when it comes to the Presidential election itself – as Goldwater discovered in 1964 and the Democrat George McGovern in 1972 – American voters tend to play safe.

Until then we may simply have to endure three more months of apocalyptic fantasy, bizarre antics, absurd predictions, and the earnest, serious broaching of propositions which in previous years would be laughed at as ridiculous. Try not to let it go to your head.