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Donald Trump saw it and none of those who governed and legislated for a living did (apart from, to a degree and through such rose-tinted glasses his vision is blurred, Bernie Sanders). The country has tried changing parties in the White House and the Congress (Tom Foley to Newt Gingrich, who is not “odious” as the Tuesday NP editorial claimed, merely flakey, to Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, and now the more promising Paul Ryan). By any normal criteria, the whole governing elite should be sent packing, bag and baggage, foot, horse and guns. The commentariat should be celebrating the fact that Donald did the necessary to round up the Archie Bunker vote, and it is little wonder that it is now almost half the people, but is a moderate in all policy areas except illegal or hostile immigration and unequal trade deals; and that Hillary has managed to drive off the loopy left. If we were now witnessing a contest between Sanders and Cruz, there really could be an impending catastrophe.

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Now that Trump is the nominee, having come from the political wilderness and paid for his own campaign, he will drastically scale back the stylistic infelicities (which are as disagreeable to me as to most serious people, but are just part of his shtick). He is not ideological and will make the system work — he is, as he never tires of telling us, a deal-maker. In foreign policy, he will be neither trigger-happy like George W., nor an other-worldly pacifist like Obama. He will spend a billion dollars of the Republican party’s money reminding the country that legally and ethically, Hillary is carrying more dead weight cargo than the Queen Mary. He and Hillary will now both campaign toward the centre, but whoever wins, this is the last stand of moderation. One more debacle like the past four or five presidential terms, and the animals will be released. The paint-ball parks, the shooting ranges, and the teeming ghettos (scores of millions of Americans unnoticed by Norman Rockwell, Grandma Moses and Walt Disney) will not be gulled again by a limousine liberal in a neon pantsuit or a pseudo-blue-collar billionaire.

The U.S. and the world could do much worse and the media, whom Donald has rightly taken to the woodshed to the general delight of the public, should stop wringing its hands and report more perceptively and equably this performance of great virtuosity in the greatest circus of all, which has caught them all with unclean hands and their pants down. Vulgar, corrupt, banal and half-mad though it is, America remains magnificent in a way, and absorbs the world’s attention; we’re all still watching.

National Post