Donald Trump did it, but he was a reality TV star. I don’t know if even in the age of round-the-clock social media anybody from the real world could pull off that kind of leap to fame.

Bret: It’s a shame because I think the Democratic field has some first-rate talents who could beat Trump, but that the party has just discounted, at least so far: Michael Bennet, Steve Bullock, Amy Klobuchar. What is it about them that just doesn’t excite the base?

Gail: Think back on the Obama comparison. People used to faint at his rallies, they were so excited. The names you mentioned are all fine people with good ideas, but I wouldn’t call any of them electric.

Bret: True, though you have to love Michael Bennet’s latest campaign pledge: “If you elect me president, I promise you won’t have to think about me for two weeks at a time.” Lord, give me a president like that.

Gail: Speaking of, um, electric — let’s move on to shocking. Which do you think will hurt Trump more, the fact that he played golf while Americans were being threatened by a terrible hurricane or the fact that he doctored the weather map to make it look as if he was actually right about the storm going to Alabama?

Bret: Remember when he used to slam President Obama for playing too much golf? Go on ….

Gail: Both of those worry me more than his much larger recent bad decisions because they go beyond bad judgment to a kind of egomaniacal delusion. Where’s the most obscure dictatorship in the world? I’ll bet even there the head man wouldn’t go on TV to show the country a map that looked like it had been doctored by an overreaching third-grade-geography student.

Is it too much to wish for a president who’s at least capable of competent forgery?

Bret: You know, if you squint hard, the Trump presidency could be a darkly comic TV show: Imagine “House of Cards,” but with Steve Martin or Rowan Atkinson in the role of President Underwood. Alternatively, perhaps the more accurate comparison might be to the sequel to the Stephen King horror flick, “It Chapter Two.”