Trump fever

Throughout John Bercow’s political career he has felt the need to atone for his student days when he was a member of the Monday Club. The Monday Club’s policy called for an end to Pakistani immigration, voluntary repatriation, and other ideas that would make Donald Trump blanch. Bercow now parades himself as a champion of liberal values and this week declared that he would not invite Trump to address Parliament on account of his ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’. He had welcomed China’s Xi Jinping and Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono, but decided he must draw the line at the President of the United States.

In so doing, Bercow has helped demonstrate why Trump won the American presidential election. Through his bombastic language and taunting 3 a.m. tweets, the US President has perfected the art of winding up his critics to the point that they begin to sound even less reasonable than him. Thus he ensures that, while he will never convince many Democrats that he is their president, support among his own supporters remains solid, and independent voters grow wary of his opponents.