The Trump card

The day after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Donald Trump arrived by helicopter at Turnberry, his golf course in Scotland. The financial markets were in crisis and David Cameron had resigned in a panic. The Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, said that Britain had ‘collapsed: politically, monetarily, constitutionally and economically’. The then candidate (still not even party nominee) Trump put it differently. ‘You just have to embrace it,’ he said. ‘It’s the will of the people. I love to see people take their countries back.’ Perhaps his advice should have been taken more seriously.

Huge numbers of people, including many Americans, think that Trump is unfit for the office of president. But why do so many support him? In most advanced democracies, there is a desire for change, which is why political insurgents — from Trump to Nigel Farage to Emmanuel Macron — can come from nowhere to finish first.