Donald Trump is probably in your news timeline right now, if you’d only bother to look.

First, the MSM is riveted with this guy: a celebrity acting and doing and saying crazy Republican things, and leading in the polls. He makes Clinton Biden Sanders look desirable by comparison!

Second, the conservative sphere is just beside themselves at this point. The Czar would wager the Right has a harder time avoiding the subject of Trump than the Left. He’s hurting our cause! No, he’s sticking it to the media! Don’t kid yourself—he’s light on policy. No, way, he’s offending the screws!

Actually, despite the grade school report opener of “Donald Trump is a man of many contrasts,” the Czar isn’t at all surprised. Here’s our take.

Trump is a gag candidate. Maybe he’s serious in his own imagination, but there’s just too much evidence that he’s a tool for the Clintons. Maybe it’s his life-long worship of the Clintons and all the money they made him, or his obnoxiously liberal views, or the lengthy phone call Bill Clinton had with Trump the day before his announcement or the simple observation that Trump seems to do something even dumber and stupid whenever the news on Hillary Clinton goes bad and public. If you were the Clintons, and if you wanted to hurt the Republicans, you might consider running a distraction candidate. And if so, you would choose someone with instant access to media, someone financially suited to run a campaign that would bypass PACs and disclosure, and someone who couldn’t be hurt by revelations of hypocrisy. Actually, Donald Trump would be the idea candidate to put out there.

Gag candidates are nothing new in American history, and certainly the Democrats have put out their share of them (as have Republicans). There’s nothing illegal about it. Whether it’s recent—like Scott Ashjian—or more historical—the Czar always suspected John C. Fremont was likely a stooge in 1856—it’s a viable technique for dividing opponent support when your guy is more vulnerable.

This is awfully hard to prove, and probably not worth our time. A large number of Trump’s alleged supporters aren’t even voters, as a few surveys are starting to reveal. And electorally, once some of the other candidates begin to drop out of the race, you will see the remaining candidates pick up some numbers that will equal, and then surpass, Trump’s support. Once that happens, the Trump supporters who actually vote will begin to move toward other candidates.

The Czar has spoken to a few people who support Trump. They all say the same thing: they personally dislike Trump (and indeed, that statement comes up almost immediately), but love watching the Republicans crap themselves dealing with him. Trump is effectively a third-party candidate who is forcing the Republicans to up their game. In that context, perhaps, Trump poses no real harm to the party but clearly makes them stronger. For example, during Trump’s inclusion, we have seen Carly Fiorina emerge as a powerful player, and Rand Paul suffer. We have seen some of the less impressive candidates get pushed to the back, while Marco Rubio up his game. Scott Walker has learned that he seriously needs to build energy, and Jeb Bush is actually suffering in the polls. Is Trump responsible for this? Who cares, his supporters will likely say.

And what about that debate? It’s the best-watched debate in television history, and one-in-ten Americans heard who Ted Cruz is, what Christie thinks about executive power, and what Huckabee thinks about ISIS. Is Trump responsible for these high ratings? Probably not, based on the high ratings for the undercard debate, but Trump thinks so. At any rate, who cares? Trump is forcing the public to watch and hear conservatives build a Republican party that’s finally getting the message.

But what message? Here’s the interesting thing: yes, Establishment Republicans (the country club type) are getting hollered at. The public doesn’t want soft, squishy, go-along-to-get-along politics. They’ve seen Obama divide and polarize to great effect. While that has definitely hurt his party (the country isn’t interested in bipartisan consensus anymore), Obama has taught the Republicans that being soft won’t ever work.

The sooner Trump is gone, the better. He’s yelling over the real voices of real candidates. But each time he does, the other candidates sharpen their knives a bit more. Because let’s be honest: if you can’t beat Trump, you’re not going to defeat the MSM anti-Republican machine. Ask Mitt Romney whether nice and conciliatory works against mean and nasty.

Is Trump a phony? Definitely. Is he a Democratic plant? Probably. Is he helping the Republicans anyway? Possibly.

Is he forcing the GOP to start re-thinking their approach? Well, yeah—and for that, the Republican nominee in 2016 ought to be a little appreciative. Not much—but a little.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.