The time for laughing at the American buffoon with the ridiculous comb over is over. It turns out that ‘The Donald’ is having the last laugh. Despite it being April fool’s day, this is no joke. It is highly probable that Donald Trump will be moving into the White House in 2017.

For those who believe that this cannot happen, let me enlighten you. The advent of social media and instant communication has given new power to anti-establishment lunatics around the world. For instance no-one would have predicted that the UK Labour party would have elected someone as unsuitable for top office as the anti-Semitic, anti-nuclear, anti-business Jeremy Corbyn. But he’s now within touching distance of No.10 Downing Street. Crazy but true.

Donald Trump has set Republican voter turnout records for every state in the US except Vermont. He has shredded his political opponents with a ruthless efficiency not seen since Joseph Stalin. (Get ready Hilary Clinton, your secret email accounts are in his sights!) His political opponents have fired back but have failed to realise that he’s made of Teflon. And Trump is the absolute master of media manipulation. He sells papers and gains viewers with every outrageous statement that he makes.

In the face of such a threat, one would have imagined the Democratic Party rallying around Hilary Clinton, but in fact the opposite is true. Bernie Sanders is inflicting real damage on her voter base and credibility by accusing her of being in the pockets of Big Business and in particular Goldman Sachs.

So the free world is likely to be led by someone who will make George W Bush’s administration look like a golden era of social enlightenment and intellectual distinction.

Of course, those of us who are outside the American political process can afford to watch the whole US presidentialtrain wreck in the smug realisation that it could not happen here. But in 1933 our great grandfathers must have been just as sanctimonious when they watched theidiotic Austrian corporal sweep to power in Berlin. After all, what have such distant events got to do with Australia?

The answer is quite a lot. The next leader of the free world will face challenges ranging from terrorism, the rise of China, economic instability and environmental change all of which are global issues. On social matters, many Western nations take their guidance from the US. So how do we survive a Trump administration?To assist you to prepare,here is a handy six point guide to the next eight years of your life:

1. Ignore him. After all, aren’t all US Presidents constrained by their own administrations and the obstructionist US congress? You only have to see how little of Obama’s manifesto made its way to the statute books to realise how impotentthe POTUS actually is.

2. Grow a thicker skin. Trump has insulted just about every minority group he has encountered during his election campaign. Mexicans are rapists and drug runners, decorated war heroes are trashed for getting themselves captured, Women who oppose his views are obviously doing so at the wrong time of the month and Muslims are to be banned from the US. Welcome to the era of ‘telling it as it is’.

3. Practice your Benito Mussolini pout. You know it makes sense. Jut out your chin and tilt your head to one side while looking down your nose at humanity. If you can frown like an unhappy emoticon, so much the better.

4. Get ready for higher taxes. When Trump builds his Mexican wall, the bill is going to the Mexican government. Likewise, America’s allies are not paying their way for the privilege of American protection so we can expect the bill through the mail soon.

5. Tighten your belt. Trump is strongly in favour of American economic protectionism. He opposes the Trans Pacific Partnership and has vowed to repatriate jobs back to America. All imports to America are to be taxed at 20%. A recipe for global growth it ain’t!

6. Give it a go yourself. No I’m not talking about running for president, but Trump has proved you can always bluff your way to that dream job or seemingly unattainable role that you always craved for. It’s probable that not even Trump himself thought he would get this close to the White House. His likely motive in running for office was to prove to his business cronies that he could have made president had he put his mind to it. Ok we don’t have his media training, his inherited billions or his planet sized ego, but it just goes to show that anything is possible if you have the bravado.

I’ve always fancied that job as chairman of Microsoft, and if I have to threaten to punch the interviewer in the face to land the job then it just shows that my degree at Trump University was worth the paper it was written on after all.Welcome to the new reality!