Trump's ragged army

In less than two weeks the American presidential election campaign will be over and sociopolitical commentary will shift a gear. Until recently, the chatter was predominantly about why Donald Trump was doing so much better than expected, and the reasoning tended to involve elites, globalisation, unemployment, political correctness and angry white males. There's still a tiny chance that Trump will win on 8 November, and if that happens those lines of enquiry will hit overdrive. But the overwhelming likelihood is that the Republican will be trounced by Hillary Clinton, and the chronicles will very quickly shift to something more specific: how on earth did the nomination process of America's centre-right party produce such a doozy? What does it say about the Republican Party and, perhaps, conservative politics more generally?