If Donald Trump grew a small, square mustache above his lip, would his poll numbers increase yet again? For a candidate running almost purely on attention, can any shock really be deleterious?

Howard Dean was the first Internet candidate and Barack Obama the initial one to ride those new rules to success. But things have already markedly changed: That was a time of bulky machines on your lap, and the new political reality rests lightly in your pocket. A smartphone’s messages are brief and light on details, and its buzzing is more important than anything it delivers.

The diffusion of media was supposed to make it impossible for a likable incompetent like George W. Bush to rise. How could such a person survive the scrutiny of millions of “citizen journalists” like us? If anything, it’s made it easier, even for someone who’s unlikable and incompetent. For a celeb with a Reality TV willingness to be ALL CAPS all the time, facts get lost in the noise, at least for awhile.

That doesn’t mean Donald Trump, an adult baby with an attention span that falls somewhere far south of 15 months, will be our next President, but it does indicate that someone ridiculously unqualified and hugely bigoted gets to be on the national stage and inform our political discourse. The same way Jenny McCarthy used her platform to play doctor and spearhead the anti-vaccination movement, Trump gets to be a make-believe Commander-in-Chief for a time.

Unsurprisingly, Nicholas Carr has written the best piece on the dubious democracy the new tools have delivered, a Politico Magazine article that analyzes election season in a time that favors a provocative troll, a “snapchat personality,” as he terms it. The opening:

Our political discourse is shrinking to fit our smartphone screens. The latest evidence came on Monday night, when Barack Obama turned himself into the country’s Instagrammer-in-Chief. While en route to Alaska to promote his climate agenda, the president took a photograph of a mountain range from a window on Air Force One and posted the shot on the popular picture-sharing network. “Hey everyone, it’s Barack,” the caption read. “I’ll be spending the next few days touring this beautiful state and meeting with Alaskans about what’s going on in their lives. Looking forward to sharing it with you.” The photo quickly racked up thousands of likes.

Ever since the so-called Facebook election of 2008, Obama has been a pacesetter in using social media to connect with the public. But he has nothing on this year’s field of candidates. Ted Cruz live-streams his appearances on Periscope. Marco Rubio broadcasts “Snapchat Stories” at stops along the trail. Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush spar over student debt on Twitter. Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham produce goofy YouTube videos. Even grumpy old Bernie Sanders has attracted nearly two million likers on Facebook, leading the New York Times to dub him “a king of social media.”

And then there’s Donald Trump. If Sanders is a king, Trump is a god. A natural-born troll, adept at issuing inflammatory bulletins at opportune moments, he’s the first candidate optimized for the Google News algorithm.•