Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Americano podcast, a special series of discussions about the biggest political event of this year, the 2016 US presidential election.

My name's Freddie Gray and I'm Deputy Edger of The Spectator. I'm joined by John Rick MacArthur, who is publisher of Harper's Magazine, and we're going to

discuss the early days of the Donald Trump transition and what's next for the Democratic Party.

So, Rick, as someone, I think it's fair to say who comes from the authentic American left,

how scared are you by a Trump presidency and why?

Well, you see, I started out, as readers and the spectator may recall, saying I wasn't

afraid of Trump sort of brazenly acting indifferent.

And it was Ralph Nader, of all people who told me to get straight and take him seriously

that he was dangerous.

And the implication was also that he could win.

And so to think of him as a figure of fun and to ridicule him at this point seems maybe dangerous.

But the main thing that I think about Trump is that he's unstable.

He's mentally unstable.

And that if he takes something the wrong way, say a foreign leader makes a joke or criticizes him or postures for his constituency or her constituency,

he's going to take it personally and overreact. Now, there may be reserves of good judgment and moderation and common sense in Trump that

we've yet to see, but it seems unlikely that he's going to become a fully developed, mature

man, as some people have suggested to me, simply because he's occupying the White House.

In fact, I even doubt that he's going to live in the White House.

Somehow, you know that he spent very little time on the campaign trail.

In other words, if he could possibly avoid it, he didn't spend the night away from home,

away from New York.

He would fly back at all hours of the night from Iowa, as I recall,

...