I can’t shake this awful premonition (which is backed up by polling data) that hinterland bumblefucks will mostly lean against Elizabeth Warren and go with the devil they know, and out of this Donald Trump may once again pull off an electoral college victory despite losing the popular vote. Bernie Sanders has his devotional following, but no path to the Democratic nomination.

The only candidates who could save us from a Warren loss are (a) Typewriter Joe, who’s been slipping in the polls and excites no one outside of retirement-age whites and mainstream African Americans, and (b) Pete Buttigieg, the only formidable Democratic contender who’s below retirement age and radiates a combination of intelligent practicality and X-factor excitement (but who faces a stiff uphill situation with African-American homophobes).

So Typewriter Joe is the only thing standing between the urban and suburban, reasonably well-educated, non-bumblefuck electorate and four more horrific years of The Beast. Joe is polling way ahead of Trump, which is obviously a comfort. But he’s a holdover, a withered brand, past his prime and so not the guy to run things in the 2020s. Better than Trump, of course, but if you set aside the decency factor and the practical-liberal approach to governing you’re left with a guy who’s repeatedly signalled that biology is tapping on his shoulder and who’ll be 82 when his first term ends.

Which is why I wrote yesterday that “I feel as if we’re all in the middle of this vaguely depressing, increasingly terrifying, extremely slow-motion political nightmare.”