12 december 2015, trumped

Cycling home listening to the ever-excellent pm programme (on i-player of course), I found myself, possibly for the first time ever, agreeing with the visceral mep dan hannan, who brought a semblance of sense to a hysterical debate on donald trump's latest outburst by pointing out that banning him from entering the uk for his calls to ban muslims from entering america was a somewhat ridiculous bending to the inevitable "something must be done" feeling. Alas, everyone is talking about trump (and into that trap I fall), which proves yet again that there's no such thing as bad publicity, and few are better at it than "the don". Happily, he has no chance of actually becoming president: the excellent nate silver, who correctly predicted the result last time around in all 50 states, points out he has about 25% support amongst republicans who themselves make up around 25% of the electorate, so a net 6-8%, which is about the same as believe the apollo moon landings were faked (and probably the same people). He has though, as so many spiky populists have before him (hello nigel), shone a spotlight on an uncomfortable issue and succesfully shifted the political centre. Trump is redirecting obama's isolationism to move american identity more towards its nasty, nativism persona and ever further from the "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" mantra on which it was originally built. Maybe its europe's era to inherit that spirit on which wealth and prosperity was built over generations. Last word though to the real genius behind donald trump, it was finally revealed yesterday: sacha baron cohen (in full).