Clinton will win BUT Is it ordinary people backing him or is it the richer end of the middle classes if not the ultra rich elite?
How Donald Trump has changed the world - FT.com#axzz48FEFh7dY
Themes yes, but what has brought this on? Is it a great trend or was it that no half competent republican stepped forwards knowing they couldn't win, thus left a vacuum for a Trump, Farage, Le Pen, Salmon or Sturgeon to be sucked in. (USA, UK, FR, Scotland, etc). Only time will tell but watching the Ukraine, Austria, Italy, Estonia, Norway and Spain will be interesting in the run up to 2020 regardless of the further inflection from Brexit!
Trump
What are those ideas? I would highlight five.
First,
a rejection of globalisation and free trade. This, of course, is a theme that Mr Trump shares with Bernie Sanders on the left of the Democratic party. Its influence can already be seen in the way in which Mrs Clinton has backed away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that she once championed.
The
second theme is
nationalism, epitomised by Mr Trump’s slogan of
“America First”. In Europe, nationalism implies a
rejection of the EU. But the global implications of American nationalism are much more serious since the US underpins the whole international security system and issues the world’s reserve currency, the dollar.
A
third idea is the embrace of the notion of a
“clash of civilisations” between the west and Islam. Even as President George W Bush launched a “war on terror” in 2001, he rejected the idea that the US is at war with Islam itself. Mr Trump, with his talk of temporarily banning all Muslims from entering the US, has essentially embraced the idea of inevitable conflict between the west and the Islamic world.
A
fourth theme is a relentless
assault on the “elite”, including Washington, Wall Street and the universities. A populist distrust of elites has been a perennial theme in US politics for decades, if not centuries. But growing inequality, immigration and the financial crisis have driven anti-elite rhetoric to new levels. As a New York billionaire, Mr Trump is an unlikely tribune of the common man. But he has played the card effectively during the campaign.
A
fifth and related trend is the
denunciation of the mainstream media as untrustworthy and an embrace of alternative, conspiratorial narratives that are flourishing on the internet. Mr Trump, for example, has promoted the baseless idea that President Barack Obama was not born in the US. This embrace of conspiracy theories is pernicious for democracy, which requires some agreement on basic facts as the foundation for debate.
Variants of these five trends are also
flourishing on the far right in Europe. The governments of Poland and Hungary are in the hands of parties that preach a Trumpian mix of nationalism, fear of Islam, distrust of the “liberal” media and anti-globalism. In France, Mr Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, is likely to make it to the final round of the presidential election in 2017.
How Donald Trump has changed the world - FT.com#axzz48FEFh7dY
