Trumpism is dead, long live populism!

Donald Trump is done for. Trumpism too. That’s the main takeaway of the Midterms. Many of the candidates Trump backed performed badly and Trump’s own incessant meddling in the Republican campaign seems to have turned voters off. That curious, manic, sometimes amusing little epoch in modern Western politics – the Trump era – is over.

But anyone who thinks this means populism is over is kidding themselves. Those folk of a more technocratic bent who are currently clinking their glasses of champagne at the prospect that populism is heading for the graveyard of bad ideas are in for a rude awakening. For there’s another takeaway from these Midterms – Trumpism might be dead, but populism lives.

Trump’s humiliation is undeniable. There will be many reasons the Republicans didn’t do as well as expected, with that noisily predicted Red Wave turning out to be more of a red dribble. But a key one is Trump.