Us politics

Feeling the Bern lasts only so long, it turns out. Now for the hangover. One of my friends posted a message on Facebook at the weekend that sums it up. ‘What is on my mind this morning is Sanders. I voted for Sanders but right now I really want him to step aside and let Ms Clinton fight the fight against Trump,’ she wrote, going on to explain how worried she was about the future of the US. ‘If I have to go knock on doors to get Democrats to vote for Hillary, I will. The prospect of a Trump presidency terrifies me! I will seek asylum somewhere!’ Whoever thought it would

This morning, Ted Cruz bowed out of the race. Now, John Kasich has given up. As a result Donald J. Trump, the most grotesque candidate ever to have run for the Oval Office, is now the only candidate still running for the Republican Party’s  nomination. And so the most powerful country on earth, a nation teeming with talent, will this November be asked to choose between Hillary Clinton or the egregious Trump. It cannot be assumed that Trump will be defeated in the presidential election itself. This week, for the first time, a poll put him ahead of her. The bookmakers give him a 30 per cent chance: this time last year, he had

Another Tuesday, another triumph for Donald Trump. The Republican frontrunner had a clean sweep at last night’s primaries, winning easily in all the states that voted. He took all the delegates from Pennsylvania Maryland,  Connecticut, and Delaware — plus 9 of 15 in Rhode Island. After his huge victory in New York last week, that means he has won around 200 delegates in the last seven days. Before last week, it looked very much as if Trump would fall short of 1237 delegates, which is the majority he needs (in theory) to win the nomination in the first round of voting in July. Now, he is on course not only to

Ted Cruz once suggested – it feels like years ago but was only January – that Republican voters would not choose Donald Trump because of his ‘New York values’. The idea behind the diss was that Trump’s elite social liberalism would not play well with the conservative majority. Well, Cruz was wrong – and New Yorkers repaid him last night with a giant slap in the face, as the Donald swept to victory in his home state. Poor ol’ Ted came in a distant third. Everybody knew Trump would win in New York, but the extent of his victory is staggering. He won almost two-thirds of the Republican vote, which meant

Last night in Chicago, a mob of progressives shut down a Donald Trump rally. The protestors — described as mostly young millennials — infiltrated the University of Illinois Pavilion, in central Chicago, and set about subverting the event. They waved Mexican flags — pro-immigrant, geddit — and wore t-shirts calling Trump Hitler. There were violent clashes and a policeman was reportedly injured. The protestors cheered when police announced the rally would be shut down because of security concerns. They revelled in their victory against free speech, taunting the furious Trump fans with chants of ‘we won’. This is American politics now: juvenile, anti-liberal, menacing. We know that Trump voters are angry.

What’s different about Donald Trump? Forget about the hair for a while, if you can. What sets him apart is his defiant disregard for the ideological consensus that other American politicians sign up to. That consensus can be summed up as ‘hopeful humanism’. Of course ‘humanism’ doesn’t mean non-religion here: this hopeful humanism is always expressed with some degree of reference to Christian (or Judeo-Christian) tradition. This consensus, of course, involves certain patterns of moral rhetoric. It involves speaking about people of all races and religions with respect – not labelling Mexicans rapists, not proposing a ban on Muslims coming into the country. It means respecting international human rights, and

It was, in the end, the best possible night for Donald Trump. On Super Tuesday, 12 American states voted for Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. Trump won seven. That was enough to ensure he remains easily the frontrunner, but not enough to persuade his opponents to coalesce around one of his rivals. Had he won nine or ten, the Republican party might have fallen in behind the man in second place, Ted Cruz. As it turned out, Marco Rubio, the last establishment man standing, won one state, which has encouraged him to keep fighting. But Rubio’s reluctance to admit defeat means the anti-Trump vote will continue to fracture. His stubbornness