The news that Donald Trump’s new campaign manager is Steve Bannon, head of the right-wing media site Breitbart, has shocked a few commentators. It shouldn’t. For almost a year now, it’s been obvious to anybody who can be bothered to look that the Trump campaign and Breitbart fit together like hand in glove, though who is
Watch this clip of Donald Trump suggesting yesterday that gun-rights enthusiasts might kill Hillary Clinton, and tell me, seriously, that you think he is being serious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvVbdmP0bk Now watch Hillary Clinton in 2011 joking about the death of Gaddafi, and tell me — honestly — who is more sinister? ‘We came, we saw, he died!’
Hillary Clinton can count herself lucky to have Barack Obama cheerleading her bid for the presidency. The outgoing President is ending his time in power with high approval ratings. People still approve of him after all these years; like Hillary’s husband Bill, Barack’s presidency is ending on a high. And last night, at the Democratic
You might find them abhorrent. You might think them stupid for having fallen for such a charlatan. You might be right on those counts. But you can’t pretend that Donald Trump voters are all vicious fascists, because they aren’t. Indeed, the most shocking aspect of the Trump fans I’ve met is their decency. For all
Donald Trump’s speech tonight was not exactly poetry, but it was clear and surprisingly coherent. It was also clever, sort of. And it might just help him win the election in November. People find it disturbing, but Trump’s anti-globalism, America First and law-and order-focus plays very well in America in 2016. Americans are less and
Freddy Gray and Scott McConnell discuss the American tragedy with Isabel Hardman: Cleveland, Ohio ‘Whatever complicates the world more — I do,’ Donald Trump once said. If you can’t decipher what that means, don’t worry, that’s the point. ‘It’s always good to do things nice and complicated,’ he added, by way of explanation, ‘so that
Nigel Farage is here in Cleveland at the Republican Convention. He’s enjoying himself, and why not? Britain has voted for Brexit, and he doesn’t have a party to run. He can bask. Today he had lunch and a Q&A session with some fellow-minded conservatives on the Old River Road. They were all pleased as punch about Brexit, the Donald
After some confusion, it is confirmed: Donald Trump has picked Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his vice-presidential running mate. After the terrorist attack in Nice last night, the Trump campaign announced, somewhat melodramatically, that it had postponed its Veep announcement ‘out of respect’. This led some pundits to suggest that all the reports yesterday saying that Trump
Are we learning, rather painfully, what happens when you let journalists take over? Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are political hacks, by instinct and experience, so perhaps it is not surprising that Brexit is starting to look and feel like a post-modern sequel to the novel Scoop. Deadlines, panic, laziness, brilliance, incompetence, disaster, highs, lows, sheer bloody madness — this
Is Donald Trump an idiot or a genius or a mad idiot genius? He seems driven by some demented force that even he doesn’t understand. What else made him come to Scotland on Friday last week? The ostensible reason, and probably the motive in Trump’s head, was that he wanted to reopen one of his
Alright folks, this is the big one. It’s EU Referendum Night, and bluffers everywhere have been training hard. We’ve all been talking utter rot about Europe for months now. To distinguish yourself tonight, you need to bring your A-game, especially since there will be nothing much to say until at least 2 am. Here are ten
If you think the Conservative party is in a bad way over Europe, spare a thought for the Republicans of Washington DC. Their presidential candidate is Donald Trump, and he’s a nightmare. The party can’t stand him, he can’t stand the party, and somehow they’re supposed to win an election together. The omens don’t look
I’m sitting in a gay café in Washington DC. Opposite me, a lesbian couple are hugging and kissing, trying to console each other about the massacre of 53 people in a gay club in Orlando last night — the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11. This weekend was supposed to be a big gay carnival. There
Washington, DC The Bernie Sanders campaign has always been touched by irony. Now it is turning into a mad joke. He cannot win the nomination — but, like a deranged old dog, he’s still fighting. Rather than concede defeat to Hillary Clinton, he keeps scrapping away. He hopes somehow to win the primary in DC
In San Jose, California, last night, anti-Trump protestors went on another violent rampage. A man was assaulted, others were punched, Trump supporters were pelted with eggs, cars were smashed, and clashes broke out with the police. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEMZSn8iLr4 The Mayor of San Jose decided not to blame the violence on the people doing the violence. He
Farewell then Ted Cruz, who has now accepted the inevitable and suspended his candidacy for the Republican Party Nomination. Cruz ran a brilliant campaign but was endlessly undermined by his own unattractiveness as a human being. It wasn’t just his looks, and his unfortunate physical awkwardness. He came across as a duplicitous evangelical preacher, despised by everyone
Tell me something. When you watch the above video of Justin Trudeau, does it warm your heart? Do you think it funny and therefore good? Do you say to yourself, ‘Aww, isn’t it great that our politicians don’t take themselves too seriously? It’s all in a good cause, too, bless!’ Or do you cringe and
[audioplayer src=”http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/261189280-the-spectator-podcast-the-wrong-right.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray and Tom Slater discuss the state of the right” startat=22] Listen [/audioplayer] Is Boris Johnson turning into the thinking man’s Donald Trump? Just like the Donald, he’s got funny hair, charisma, and an appetite for women. He may not be as rich as Trump — although we were all impressed by
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
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
