A Trans-Atlantic View

I'm enjoying some U.K. pundit views of U.S. politics, for example this column from The Telegraph. Simon Heffer makes some interesting points about the Clinton vs. Trump presidential race.

She is funded by the sort of squillionaire Wall Street types middle America has come to blame for its financial woes. She has not given a press conference for over 270 days, which starts to cause some, even in the obedient US media, to wonder what she might have to hide. She has done nothing to consolidate the “bounce” she enjoyed after her convention, because she has very little new to say. Her campaign has consisted of telling people to vote for the profoundly under-achieving and corrupt political establishment that has so failed America since the Reagan years.

Mr Trump, by contrast, has managed to engage with millions of Americans who had given up on politics, and offer them something different. It may be rank populism, it may be demagoguery, it may repel many other millions of people, but it has energised legions who have for decades felt that America’s political class disdained them. In some cases, but far from all, they are less educated and live in unsophisticated places, but their votes count the same as that of a millionaire on the Upper East Side with a PhD.

"Very little new to say" versus "engage with millions," sounds about right, yes? Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.