turning off Trump<\/a>. Moreover, candidates still need to appeal to the aforementioned groups in order to secure the 270 electoral-college votes to win the White House. Bashing Clinton as corrupt, dishonest and a \u2018nasty woman\u2019 while whining that the media are helping her won\u2019t wash with independents and women voters.<\/p>\nBut although Trump will lose badly\u2014and probably cost the Republicans control of the Senate, and perhaps the House (though the latter remains unlikely)\u2014it\u2019s important to reflect about the foul public mood that, until recently, has carried the former reality television star so close to power. It would also be a big mistake to assume normal programming will resume after 8 November.<\/p>\n
A nation whose hallmark has been a sense of irrepressible optimism and purpose is bitterly divided and uncertain. Large pluralities think their country is heading in the wrong direction, that it\u2019s in serious decline. Their trust in institutions is at an all-time low.<\/p>\n
Many Americans have grown up knowing the US is the most powerful, most prosperous and the most influential nation in history, culturally and economically. They are coming slowly and painfully to realise that that\u2019s no longer true.<\/p>\n
In recent times, they have reached the conclusion that America\u2019s political and economic systems no longer work for them. They have witnessed wage stagnation, widening income inequality and, since the Great Recession in 2008\u201309, the most sluggish recovery since the Great Depression of the 1930s. They are fed up with political correctness and sick of being unable to win any war anywhere. They lament that illegal immigration has changed the nation\u2019s culture in ways they find repugnant. They blame free-trade deals and Chinese cheap labour for the loss of manufacturing jobs.<\/p>\n
In short, they are angry, they fear they are losing the country they know and love, and they want someone to blame.<\/p>\n
Metropolitan commentators\u2014from The<\/em> Washington Post<\/em> and The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> to the major commercial networks\u2014have frequently sneered at Clinton\u2019s recent \u2018basket of deplorables\u2019 description. Yet many still don\u2019t understand the Trump phenomenon. Although he\u2019s an object of derision and contempt, the billionaire buffoon has repudiated an establishment that has become an entrenched class of politicians increasingly divorced from the public. As a result, he has tapped into real grievances.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s misleading to say his appeal is just due to racism and xenophobia. Nor is it fair to think this frustration and popular anger against the established order are confined to America: they are just as conspicuous across Europe. (Think of Le Pen\u2019s National Front in France, or the Austrian Freedom Party, or Hungary\u2019s Jobbik Party.)<\/p>\n
The real tragedy of Trump is that his divisive rhetoric and erratic conduct, not to mention his thin skin and petulant ego, have obscured the legitimate reasons many Americans were drawn to his anti-establishment message in the first place. The upshot is that although Trump will lose on 8 November, Trumpism\u2014an angry, populist backlash against globalisation, immigration, an internationalist foreign policy and political elites\u2014may endure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump\u2019s insurgent bid to win the White House is the political equivalent of a slow-motion car crash. Every aspect is a disaster; and the Republican Party is powerless to stop it. So big is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":411,"featured_media":29258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1428,1734,1606],"class_list":["post-29257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-donald-trump","tag-populism","tag-presidential-election-2016"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Trump is finished but Trumpism may prevail | The Strategist<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n