Thai politics, with its colourful cast of characters, coups and counter-coups, offers an unusually rich range of things to talk about, and is a full plate for discussion in itself. And yet even during this intolerably hot season, with Thai political tensions running high and fears about the future affecting life on all levels, I found my distinguished interlocutors drifting off topic due to an unusual political phenomenon that can be summed up in a single word: Trump.