In a universe that somehow includes an Iowa couple flying Confederate flags and a debate still raging about whether Pluto is a planet, it should come as no surprise that Donald Trump is a serious candidate for the GOP presidential nomination.

Depending, of course, if you may use “GOP candidate” and “serious” in the same sentence.

Yes, it’s true; Marion County Republicans Owen and Linda Golay flew three Confederate flags in an Independence Day parade. Don’t they know how many Iowa soldiers died in the Civil War?

According to the always accurate Internet, 13,001.

And yes, I know, there is the small matter of free speech, not that free speech is a small matter. There’s also the small matter of slavery and respect for your fellow human beings, which are also not small matters.

Even Iowa Republicans were dismayed by the flag display. Jeff Kaufmann, the head of the Iowa Republican Part, said, “He was making a political statement, a statement that was in opposition to what the GOP and the party of Lincoln stands for. That, to me, doesn’t pass muster.”

You’d think that if even South Carolina takes down the Confederate flag, Iowans wouldn’t feel the compunction to raise it.

But then, you’d think no one would much care about whether Pluto is a planet or not. I mean, it’s a faraway rock without Wi-Fi. We can find much closer rocks without Wi-Fi, if that’s what we’re into.

Which reminds me of Donald Trump, though he probably has Wi-Fi.

And he also probably has great love for Mexican immigrants, which he demonstrated by calling them murderers and rapists. The way to the human heart, it appears, in the Trumpster’s corner of the universe is to endear yourself with ethnic slurs and emulate former President Reagan by ignoring the facts (in Reagan’s case, it was don’t bother me with the facts).

Immigrants, it turns out, have a lower crime rate than the U.S. population as a whole, and in rape statistics, the immigrants are the ones being raped, not committing it.

But why pick on Trump? you ask. What about the other Republican candidates?

Well, there are enough GOP hopefuls to more than fill a three-ring circus and still enough left over to sell peanuts. There’s Rick Perry, who compared being gay to being alcoholic, Scott Walker, who compared Wisconsin protesters to ISIS, and Ted Cruz, who wants the Supreme Court justices to be elected (can you imagine what fun the Koch brothers would have with such elections?)

But nobody trumps the Trumpster at boisterous self-promotion. Yes, he’s very rich, and the very rich are good at that sort of thing. Of course, he’s probably gone through more bankruptcies than any other GOP candidate. He’s vehemently against same-sex marriage (it’s a Republican thing) and for “traditional” marriage — so much so that he’s been married three times. So what’s not to like?

If the GOP is getting kind of nervous about Trump, maybe Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst should join the GOP fray; Carly Fiorina just isn’t Michele Bachmann enough. And what’s a three-ring circus without Michele Bachmann?