Donald trump

Thursday

Tanya Gold

Death by television

Forty years ago this month a film appeared, so prescient I wonder if its author, Paddy Chayefsky, saw the 2016 American presidential election campaign in a crystal ball. It was called Network and it foretold the rise of Donald Trump. The plot is King Lear appears on Newsnight: a newsman run mad. The protagonist is Howard Beale (Peter Finch), an anchorman at a failing network. The year is 1976, and America is embattled with inflation, depression and the end of the Vietnam war. It is not a time for American heroes, to paraphrase Chayefsky’s acolyte Aaron Sorkin writing in The West Wing. Beale’s ratings are low. He is fired. He

The Spectator

America’s retreat

Donald Trump predicted that his election would be ‘Brexit times ten’ — which, as far as the stockmarket reaction was concerned, had some merit. The dollar plunged, and the Dow Jones along with it. Once again, the pollsters have been confounded. Once again, political analysts have been left asking whether they know their country at all. And once again we can see the same group of voters at the forefront: the older, poorer ones who are concerned about demographic change and angry about being ignored for too long. In Britain, and now in America, they are the new revolutionary class. This is where the analogies with Brexit end. Vote Leave,

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 November 2016

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said she still expected to start talks on leaving the EU as planned by the end of March, despite a High Court judgment that Parliament must decide on the invoking of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that would set Brexit in train. Opinion was divided over whether the High Court had required an Act of Parliament or a vote on a resolution. The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which is to hear the case from 5 December. The judgment set off a confused game of hunt the issue. One issue was whether the press is allowed to be rude about judges. The Daily

Taki

High life | 10 November 2016

 New York Americans have been to the polls. Everything is over but the shouting — by the loser, that is: honest Hil. I predicted that the best Trump could have hoped for was winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College but I got it wrong: the Donald has triumphed. An underfunded campaign — he spent barely half of what she did — with a skeletal crew and without the party’s full backing won out because not all of America agrees with the values of Jay Z, Beyoncé, Springsteen, Hollywood in general and gay marriage in particular. Trump appealed to those who have been snubbed, the great ignored. They

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 10 November 2016

At the beginning of November 1980, one week before Ronald Reagan won a landslide victory in the presidential election, Henry Fairlie, then writing regularly for The Spectator from Washington, finally slid off the fence and made a firm prediction. ‘Jimmy Carter will be the next President of the United States,’ he wrote in the first sentence of his column. Carter, he went on, was ‘personally a not very agreeable man’ but had a more persuasive ‘political character’ than Reagan, so would win the election. Although a much-admired political commentator, who had made his name as a columnist at The Spectator in London, where he first gave the name ‘the Establishment’

Matthew Schmitz

Donald Trump’s victory marks the death of liberalism

On election day, I left my apartment on the east side of Manhattan, walked one block to my polling station, and got in line. A reporter from the neighbourhood paper was asking people who they were voting for and why. The woman ahead of me said she was voting for Clinton, both to stop Trump and because she wanted to see a woman finally break the glass ceiling. The little boy strapped to her chest kept waving at me over her shoulder. I waved back.  Well, instead of breaking a glass ceiling, we’ll be building a wall. The difference is telling. In her concession speech, Clinton said her goal had been

James Forsyth James Forsyth

An opportunity for Britain

When Britain voted to leave the European Union, the government was at pains to insist this was not a vote to leave Europe. With Donald Trump in the White House, this distinction will be crucial: the UK will suddenly become a lot more important to the security of the continent. The Donald has not bothered to court foreign leaders. Downing Street, which prides itself on its ability to befriend US presidential contenders, has no relationship with him; neither does anyone else in Europe. As a result, there is no certainty that America’s new commander-in-chief will feel bound by Nato’s Article 5 obligation to defend any member that comes under attack.

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

The new first lady

It was a race between the first dude — Bill — and the first nude — Melania. And in the end, the first nude won, appearing next to her husband in the early hours wearing a white jumpsuit straight out of Charlie’s Angels. It may seem unfair to judge Mrs Trump so early on, but judged she will be. She awaits her turn, just as Hillary Clinton once did. How will she fare? Well, liberal American voters will want targets, and she looks like one. People are already making jokes about Michelle Obama writing Melania’s first speech, to save her the trouble of plagiarising again. There is so much for

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Can we trust the people? I’m no longer sure

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States may have signalled the death of the closest thing we have to a religion in politics. On both sides of the Atlantic, democracy risks being knocked from the high altar as an unmitigated and unquestioned good. The man’s obviously a fool and a nasty fool too. The contest should have been a walkover for Hillary Clinton. But it wasn’t. What happened? Can we be sure any longer that democracy works? Is it really the reliable bulwark against political madness that we always supposed? Without hesitation I plead guilty to the obvious charge: Trump supporters could level it at me,

Douglas Murray

It’s time to consider the real Trump

For 18 months, Donald Trump was amazingly useful to British politicians. Whatever their party, he provided them with the most magnificent means with which to polish their liberal credentials. In January, when the British Parliament spent three hours debating a public petition to ban Trump from entering the country, we learned from Labour’s Rupa Huq that he was ‘racist, homophobic, misogynist’, from the Conservative Marcus Fysh that he was ‘the orange prince of American self-publicity’ and from the SNP’s Gavin Newlands that he was not only ‘racist, sexist and bigoted’, but ‘an idiot’. So perhaps now that the giggling has subsided, we can get down to a more realistic assessment

Claire Fox

In defence of post-truth politics

Donald Trump’s shock US election victory has provoked a transatlantic howl of disbelief from a cosmopolitan elite aghast that American voters have had the temerity to reject its one true liberal world-view. Hillary Clinton’s loss is seen less as the rightful humiliation of a discredited machine politician and more as proof that the masses have, once again, rejected ‘the facts’ of the situation. To this elite, installing the Donald in the White House represents the apocalyptic dawn of a ‘post-factual era’. After all, Hillary Clinton’s chief weapon against Trump was an army of fact-checkers. Instead of attempting to defeat his arguments by the power of her own, she encouraged voters

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Trump will be much, much better for Britain

The deplorables are rather wonderful people, aren’t they? Both here and in the United States. The people’s revolution continues apace, defying the odds each time, defying the pollsters, defying the elite. I cannot tell you how pleasurable it was to scamper downstairs on Wednesday morning to check out the reaction on the Guardian’s website. It kept me cackling for hours. The previous morning the paper had concluded its fatuous leader column with the words: ‘Americans should summon a special level of seriousness and display a profound responsibility when they go to the polls.’ That alone had made me yearn for a Trump victory — the arrogant, chastising tone which liberals,

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill

The sneering response to Trump’s victory reveals exactly why he won

If you want to know why Trump won, just look at the response to his winning. The lofty contempt for ‘low information’ Americans. The barely concealed disgust for the rednecks and cretins of ‘flyover’ America who are apparently racist and misogynistic and homophobic. The haughty sneering at the vulgar, moneyed American political system and how it has allowed a wealthy candidate to poison the little people’s mushy, malleable minds. The suggestion that American women, more than 40 per cent of whom are thought to have voted for Trump, suffer from internalised misogyny: that is, they don’t know their own minds, the poor dears. The hysterical, borderline apocalyptic claims that the

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Cheer up! Donald Trump’s victory isn’t all doom and gloom

Well, it’s just like Brexit, isn’t it? The appalled tone of the BBC six o’clock news, my daughter’s refusal – she’s nine – even to get out of bed, my nice colleagues declaring that they cried, simply cried, at the result. It was everyone’s opening gambit: Can you believe it? Yes, personally, I could. After the last election, after Brexit, I wasn’t surprised that the pollsters called it wrong and I’m looking forward to hearing them wriggle out of this one, like they tried to last time. This time, unlike Brexit, there was the feeling that any woman who was indifferent to Hillary Clinton becoming leader of the free world was letting

Ed West Ed West

Donald Trump played the identity politics game – and won

I feel a strange sense of schadenfreude mixed with a heavy dose of terror and uncertainty now that the American people have elected someone with no experience whatsoever who tweets things like this: Every time I speak of the haters and losers I do so with great love and affection. They cannot help the fact that they were born fucked up! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 29, 2014 On the plus side: LOLs at liberals in my timeline. On the minus: Potential global upheaval/depression/war. So, swings and roundabouts. The BBC were just now asking about Trump’s famous plan for a wall with Mexico, still presenting it as a hugely

The Spectator

Hillary Clinton concedes to Donald Trump – ‘he must be given a chance to lead’

Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States. Hillary Clinton conceded defeat, telling supporters that Trump must be given a ‘chance to lead’ Barack Obama urged Americans to remember that ‘ultimately we are all on the same team’ Theresa May congratulated Donald Trump and said she looked forward to working with him. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country was willing to ‘do everything to return Russian and American relations to a stable path of development’. A different tone was struck by German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who reminded Trump of the country’s shared values of ‘democracy, freedom and respect for the law’. Chinese President Xi Jinping said he placed ‘great importance

Tuesday

Steerpike

Caption contest: Who’s ‘X’?

Spare a thought for Donald Trump. For weeks now, the Republican candidate has been suggesting the US voting system is rigged. Now it seems his trust issues have spread to those closest to him. In a photo from Trump’s visit to the polling station today, the presidential hopeful appears to be taking a peek at his wife Melania’s ballot slip. Given that Melania has been accused of plagiarising Michelle Obama’s speeches in the course of the campaign, could Trump be worried she is a secret Democrat? Mr S welcomes your caption suggestions — the winner will be revealed on Thursday. Update: The winner is ‘DaHitman’ with the caption ‘Who’s “X”?’

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

‘Vote for the one you dislike least’: What the US papers are saying on election day

Americans will finally head to the polls today after one of the most fractious Presidential contests in the country’s history. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have been criss-crossing the US overnight in a final dash for votes. But how has their last-ditch campaigning gone down with the American press? Here’s what the US newspapers are saying about the election: Hillary Clinton stuck with her message of sunny optimism while Donald Trump opted for a dose of darkness on the final leg of their campaigns, the New York Times said. But the paper said that while the candidates were largely trying to repeat the messages they’ve parroted all along, Trump sounded uncharacteristically

Rob Crilly

Trump vs Clinton: What to watch out for on election night

The most divisive American election in living memory is almost over. By the end of the day an estimated 130 million people will have cast their ballots and we will be well on the way to knowing which candidate has done enough to win the necessary 270 electoral college votes. Here are the key things to watch today and through the night: Polling conduct – the first test will be whether or not voting is trouble free. It might be tempting to assume American democracy is the sort of well-developed exercise that has banished fraud. Not so. Democrats have complained of intimidation during early polling, both sides have filed complaints

Ed West Ed West

Liberal ideology created Donald Trump

Dear Democrat voters, You are probably the most influential and powerful segment of the human race today. In terms of cultural reach, you are supreme; politically you are masters of the universe; you have the ability to shape our world for good or evil, and for most of the past century you and your forebears have done a pretty good job of it. I’m addressing this to Democrats in particular because in the US, as in Britain, liberalism is the prestige faith; the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in American academia is now five to one, and up to forty to one in some social sciences. Eight of the ten richest