We are mesmerised by the US primaries like never before. Donald Trump, appalling but like a trashy novel you cannot put down, has infused them with a fantastic, dream -like Alice in Wonderland quality.
Remember Alice laughing as she insists to the Queen that “One can’t believe impossible things”.
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Practice makes perfect.Trump trounces Rubio in Florida. There’s one. Trump wins majority of Republican delegates. Another. Republican nominee Trump. Another. President Trump. Another . ..
On Tuesday, Trump, again continuing to defy political gravity and conventional wisdom, took another step towards that dread outcome, one which political commentators are beginning to rationalise as possible.
Comfortably brushing aside the challenge of Marco Rubio, he put himself clearly within range of a plurality at the Republican convention, if not yet an outright majority.
His only realistic rival now is Ted Cruz whose politics are, if anything, less acceptable to the Republican mainstream.
But is the veneer of invincibility cracking? Polls show some decline in Trump’s acceptability in the face of a barrage of hostile ads from fellow Republicans – intensifying attacks on his personal character and business record, and the scenes of violence at his rallies.
And Tuesday night was in reality Hillary Clinton's night. By taking Ohio, she made her lead against Bernie Sanders unassailable in a way Trump has yet to do against Cruz.
She will have been gratified too to see Trump step closer to the nomination and a colossal Republican own goal.
In every state that voted on Tuesday except Florida, about two in five Republicans said they would consider voting for a third-party candidate over Trump and Clinton in November.
As commentators begin to cast their gaze beyond the primaries, now past their half-way mark, to the real election, the prospect of a very strange, bad-tempered slugfest looms.
And both parties must now face the reality that for the first time in a quarter-century, majorities of voters hold negative views of the two frontrunners at the same time – according to Gallup, 53 per cent have an unfavourable opinion of Clinton and 63 per cent have such a view of Trump.
In no modern election have both candidates also been so divisive and weak and both perceived as untrustworthy.
Both candidates’ teams are crafting depressingly negative appeals to voters that are as much arguments that their opponent would be disastrous for the US as they are messages trumpeting their own virtues or character.
That’s not to say yet another impossible thing will happen. Clinton remains a clear favourite for the White House.