The difference between Trump 45 and Trump 47

Him again? Donald Trump’s back in the White House. Those who thought his first term in office was an aberration – a dismaying blip in the long arc of history towards liberal democracy, properly corrected by Biden’s 2020 victory – have been proven wrong in the most painful possible way. He wasn’t some brainfart of the internet era, some moment of madness. He’s back, and all the evidence seems to suggest that what he represents is much more in tune with the global zeitgeist than what Kamala Harris or, for that matter, Keir Starmer, are selling.

But there has, I think, been what the young people like to call a ‘vibe shift’. Trump remains all the things that his detractors hate and fear and his cheerleaders love – which is to say, materialistic, selfish, transactional, unpredictable and profoundly uninterested in the moral and legal norms of government.