Method in ‘madness’ of Trumpism’s ideas

READ the New York Times or listen to National Public Radio in the US and it would be easy to assume that the result of the November presidential election has already been ­determined.

READ the New York Times or listen to National Public Radio in the US and it would be easy to assume that the result of the November presidential election has already been ­determined.

But as the northern summer days shorten, the two-horse race appears to be tightening with conservative outsider ­Donald Trump pulling back some of rival, small-l liberal, Hillary Clinton’s lead.

 Trump, whose reality TV star campaigning style grates with Democrats and many old-school Republicans alike, has signalled that he is prepared to retreat a little from his talk show host persona, in an ­attempt to win back flagging ­Republican Party support.

 He has serially toned down his more outrageous statements in an attempt to show the Republicans that he can be trusted as their party’s ­standard bearer.

 Clinton has no need to row back on her statements now her party rival, socialist Bernie Sanders, is out of the race.

 While the media can find little to fault same-old, same-old Hillary, The Donald is a different fish and he is cooked at every opportunity.

 His supporters are ridiculed as rednecks, Trumpettes, and even Trumpanzees, while the Clintonistas get no such epithets.

 This week, despite repeated denials, the press was keen to promote the claim that former Fox News supremo Roger Ailes was lending Trump a hand to prepare for the critical debates due to be held from late September.

 In promulgating this ­rejected theory, the media was able to link Ailes, who is under investigation for alleged sexual harassment and who is the bête noir of the Left because of his previous work for conservative organisations including the Reagan admin-istration, to Trump’s inner circle and smear the candidate by association, as tenuous as it may be.

 Despite this, cruising Route 80 in ultra-liberal Connecticut after ­visiting Yale University last week, the roadside signs were all posted by Trump supporters, not Clintonites.

 Perhaps in this state, they felt it wasn’t necessary to show their liberal colours because they would be assumed.

 Trump’s persona may be the reason some Americans may support him, and given voting is voluntary, candidates have two hurdles to cross, the first being getting potential voters to actually bother casting their ballot, the second being convincing them to support their candidacy.

 But there are obviously other reasons people have thrown their support behind Trump and that’s because his basic anti-Washington message resonates with a hefty chunk of the population from both ends of the political ­spectrum.

 When Trump says he wants to make America great again, a lot of older Americans think of the manner in which Ronald Reagan restored pride in Americans after the disastrous humiliations of the Carter years.

 Though he initially said he wanted to ban Muslims, he has tempered that message over the past month to say he only wishes to ban people from “territories”.

 Territories like Syria where identification of individuals has posed problems when they’ve crossed borders to reach European nations.

 “We’re gonna not let people come in from Syria that nobody knows who they are,” Trump says.

 He would ban ­nationals from what he called “terror states and terror ­nations” from ­entering the US, saying.

 “If a person can’t prove that they’re from an area, and if a person can’t prove what they have to be able to prove, they’re not coming into this country,” he said.

 That statement would resonate with many Australians and Europeans in the wake of the past few months of ­terrorist attacks.

 Three weeks ago, Trump further redefined his message saying: “We must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place.

 We don’t want them in our country.

” Tough, but a lot of people would have been in agreement and he returned to that message in late July saying: “I’m talking territory instead of Muslim...

 we have nations and we’ll come out...

 over the next few weeks with a number of the places.

 And it’s very complex.

 We have problems in Germany and we have problems with France.

 So it’s not just the countries with….

” (he was interrupted and didn’t get to say what those countries might have that he didn’t like).

 On August 15 he specified who his new vetting test would reject: all those with “hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles or who believe that sharia law should supplant American law.

 Those who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and ­hatred, will not be admitted for immigration into the country.

 “Only those who we expect to flourish in our country and to embrace a­ ­tolerant American society should be ­issued visas.

” While Trump, the persona, is ridiculed, there can be no doubt that some of the ideas loosely known as Trumpism, enjoy popular support here and would elsewhere in the Western world.

 Do Australians want sharia law? Not likely, nor do they support bigotry and hatred.

 Yet in the US as in Australia, those who express publicly such thoughts about Islamist extremism and terrorists are held up to ridicule by the elites of academia, the public broadcasters and much of the media, as being “divisive”.

 Big government is also a favourite whipping boy, as are the political and media class and much-hated political correctness.

 Fortunately, public patriotism has not yet been as totally drowned in the US as it has in Australia.

 Veterans are still ­heroes and the flag is still honoured and respected.

 The fundamentals of Trumpism will certainly survive Donald’s campaign, and, Hillary, should she win, will have to deal with a very angry cohort in the population if she fails to recognise the grievances that have propelled the Trump campaign.