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The Donald Trump phenomenon has persisted so long, and beaten back so many challenges, that it can no longer be regarded as an amusing aberration. Instead, the Trump candidacy for the Republican nomination in the US presidential election – and what it reveals about the current state of American political culture – has to be taken seriously. Unfortunately, the implications are all negative, and in many cases profoundly alarming.
Mr Trump has led the Republican field for many months, despite having no political experience or qualifications whatsoever.
But he is an established reality TV star and a “good product”. This explains why he performed far better than most people expected. But it is no longer enough to account for the persistence of his front-runner status so far into the season, long after fringe candidates and anti-politicians should have been safely dispatched.
Four years ago, Republican primary voters toyed with a long list of comparable “outsider” candidates who traded places near the top of the field before they finally held their noses and selected the uninspiring but plausible Mitt Romney. None had the persistent front-runner status of Mr Trump and there is no equivalent of Mr Romney at present, although mainstream hopes are now pinned on Senator Marco Rubio.
Elements of the American public have always been attracted to brash tycoons, confusing wealth with merit that implies competence – even if, as with Mr Trump, it is built on a large inheritance – and crude arrogance for admirable self-confidence. Many cling to a deep-seated, but groundless, myth of America as a land where anyone who really tries can become very rich. If you’re not, it’s probably your own fault.
Ironically, the overwhelming majority of Mr Trump’s supporters are angry and alienated Americans without any higher education – the very people he relishes dismissing as “losers”. Yet they identify more with him than each other. Many feel profoundly aggrieved at the social and economic changes, which they tend to blame on immigration, a favourite topic of his wrath, and minorities, rather than tycoons like Mr Trump.
He represents how they imagine they would behave if they had his money, prominence and prestige. His obvious narcissistic personality disorder thus seems admirable rather than objectionable.
The Republican establishment has been waiting for Mr Trump to “cross the line” and say something so outrageous that it scuttles his campaign. That hasn’t happened, despite a series of almost comically offensive outbursts.
He has been aggressively racist against Mexicans, calling them “rapists”. He has made a series of deeply Islamophobic remarks, calling for databases of Muslims, espionage in mosques and restrictions on Muslim immigrants. He has made profoundly sexist comments. He mocked the disability of a reporter for The New York Times who he falsely tried to cite in defence of his repeated lies about witnessing “thousands” of Muslims celebrating the September 11, 2001 attacks.
None of this has come close to disrupting, let alone sinking, his campaign. Mr Trump cannot “cross the line” because such line-crossing is precisely his appeal.
If Mr Trump seems like a cartoon character, that’s because his candidacy really is a caricature. He has taken some essential features of most politicians – pandering, cynicism, narcissism, nativism and combativeness – and exaggerated them to the point of absurdity. The appeal of such a persona can only be based on public contempt for the established authorities and delight at a figure who is reducing the process to a travesty. There’s no discernible difference between a standard Trump event and his recent appearance on the TV comedy programme, Saturday Night Live, because he is already satirising himself.
Most of Mr Trump’s supporters probably understand this, and realise he’s unlikely to be the nominee, let alone the president. But supporting him sends an unmistakable message. If – and probably when – Mr Trump falters it will not be because of his outrageous comments. These have only helped him. It will be because there is ultimately a limit to the appeal of a candidacy whose sole intelligible message basically amounts to thumbing his nose at the political establishment.
The dangers posed by what the Trump phenomenon represents among a significant subset of the American population can’t be underestimated. His constituency is expressing what are, in recent history at least, quite unprecedented levels of anger and alienation, and a growing fury among white Americans about the cultural, demographic and economic transformation of society.
This rage won’t simply go away, even if Mr Trump the candidate does. How such widespread and smouldering resentment might express itself next, and how it can be healed, will be major long-term challenges for both the Republican Party and the US as a whole.