"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

— H. L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Panic now engulfs the world over the rise of Donald Trump and the realization he's ever closer to becoming the U.S. presidential candidate for the Republican Party. With the likely coronation of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party candidate, it's "The Donald," the 24-hour TV reality show, that is shocking political establishments and status quo thinking from Albania to Zambia.

In Japan, guardians of the "bilateral relationship" in the Foreign and Defense ministries, the Liberal Democratic Party, and among shinbei (American-friendly) Japanese academics, media types and courtiers (retired bureaucrats acting as back-door channels on behalf of the prime minister to retired bureaucrats in the U.S. who are acting as back-door channels to Congress and the White House) tend to prefer Republican presidents (seen as more business-friendly, more socially conservative). But now they don't know what to do. Trump or Clinton? Ugh.