SOMETIMES you wonder if Donald Trump understands the English language. “Nobody has more respect for women than Donald Trump,” he tweeted, trying to douse the inferno of fury following the latest revelation of his demeaning views of half of the population.

Ignore for a moment the alarm bells that ring whenever a person starts talking about themselves in the third person, a sure sign that their grasp on reality is slipping. Instead, consider that you must be more twisted than a pretzel to think that boasting of sexual assault is an indicator of respect. The man who crunched on a peppermint at the sight of an attractive actress in case he found himself compelled to start kissing her (“And when you’re a star, they let you do it”) has strayed into disturbingly predatory territory. Misogyny is one thing; talking of groping women, and knowing they’ll go along with it because you’re famous, is something else entirely.

In the past few months, as the presidential campaign race has gathered momentum, the litany of abusive adjectives Mr Trump has hurled against women reads like a dictionary definition of odiousness.

He has called us bimbos, pigs, and disgusting animals. He has shown revulsion for those he – he of all people! – considers fat, and tried to humiliate a savvy broadcaster by talking of “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” when she challenged his views. Despite a rearguard action from his daughter Ivanka, whom he is grooming to succeed him as head of the family company; and despite some female employees saying he has been happy to promote them and was a good boss, the world has watched goggle-eyed as The Donald has shown what nobody is in any doubt are his true colours. All of them are a shade of farmyard brown.

Princess Diana, whom he considered the biggest catch, found him “creepy” when he sent so many flowers to her hotel room she felt she was being stalked. In her case he failed, but this is a man who does not like to be thwarted. His first wife Ivana claimed he once raped her, although she has since explained she did not mean that to be interpreted in “a literal or criminal” way. Might this be because she is scared of him? Or that he bought her off? Another glimpse was given of a cosy evening chez Trump during his second marriage when, talking about a wife’s role, he reflected, “You know, I don’t want to sound too much like a chauvinist, but when I come home and dinner’s not ready, I’ll go through the roof.” You can just picture it. The scenario is not nice, but sadly it is neither rare nor a bar to the highest office in what Gore Vidal justifiably called the United States of Amnesia. Were Mr Trump merely a throwback to another age, when wives were expected to be decorative and domestic, that would be regrettable, but it would not be an insurmountable hurdle for his political ambitions.

Many a sexist and randy dinosaur has sat in the Oval Office, both in the presidential seat and around the table. No doubt, too, there have been presidents, or candidates whose sexual appetite, habits, and sense of seigneurial entitlement would not have withstood scrutiny had they ever come to light. But what is past is long gone. Unless, of course, you are Hillary Clinton and in the invidious position of defending her husband’s dismal record of infidelity and alleged abuse.

One can wholeheartedly agree, however, when Mrs Clinton says that Mr Trump is the first nominee she considers unfit to run for president. No doubt privately, like many of us, she has long felt this to be the case. When Mr Trump talked about Mexicans as if they were cartoon characters, or wanted to ban Muslims from entering America, he pole-vaulted the bar of decency. Even so, die-hard Republicans were prepared to tie themselves into fishermen’s knots to excuse such hateful rhetoric as merely a forthright response to problems of immigration and crime. These statements, they hastened to assure us, were more a laying of ground rules than a promised policy. Meanwhile voters drawn to Mr Trump’s raw-blooded machismo and bare-faced racism egged him on, eager to see what tripe he would next talk.

Now, as the stampede of Republican loafers racing away from his campaign threatens to drown out his sandpaper voice, it is hard to see how this man can be allowed to become president. Voters may, of course, dash his hopes at the eleventh hour since there’s been a melting away of women’s support, without whom we’re told he has no hope. In today’s climate, however, where a man like Mr Trump has already managed to come so close to securing the most powerful position on the planet, nothing is certain. I do not trust polls, and I do not trust voters.

Attitudes that would appal or intimidate most women might conceivably appeal to a noxious male constituency. It is even possible that, with the much-loathed Mrs Clinton as their only alternative, some will be prepared to champion whoever opposes her, be they Genghis Khan or a tacky TV tycoon.

Yet how can a man who regards women as legitimate prey, whose comments have shown him willing to take criminal liberties with them, be allowed to hold this most august, influential and respected office? He would make America a laughing stock, and damage its legitimacy as a sophisticated world power. Remember how Italy smarted when Silvio Berlusconi’s bunga bunga parties and financial corruption became public, allowing other heads of state to snigger behind their hands? How much worse for a nation whose every foreign policy creates worldwide tremors, to be under the governance of someone who threatens to turn the White House into a “locker room”.

I recognise the impudence of presuming to lecture Americans on how to vote yet what they do affects us all. When you consider that George W Bush was once considered a nadir, with Mr Trump in the running it’s clear how naive and idealistic we were.

Listening to The Donald, you wonder how a nation that considers itself to be a leading force for social justice and enlightenment could willingly hand power to a bigot and boor for whom dignity, certainly if you’re a woman, does not matter. This candidate could bring lasting shame on the Republican party were he to reach office, at which point more scandal could very well emerge.

Like every modern democracy, the US has battled to fight inequality, prejudice and oppression. The decades of struggle that led to its first black president were a justifiable matter of pride; so too the social revolution that means its first female nominee is within touching distance of the same distinction. It’s ironic that America is only weeks away either from breaking the highest glass ceiling in the Western world or confirming what we’ve always suspected: that in certain circles men can treat women however they like and go on their way rejoicing.