Article content continued

So it doesn’t matter what stupidity, insensitivity or contradictions Trump makes or what he looks like or how much he boasts, lies and gloats.

Trump is no deep thinker. He is successful because he has expropriated key words, or hashtags, that communicate the way Americans communicate: in blunt and direct terms. He’s surfing the “zeitgeist” which is that globalization does more harm than good.

So Trump says he will “build a wall” — a concrete, not abstract, idea about stopping the continuing import of millions of unwanted immigrants and the flow of jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere.

While free trade deals are mutually beneficial overall, they have also led to the “giant sucking sound” or export of tens of millions of American (and Canadian) manufacturing jobs. To say otherwise, as policy wonks like Hillary do, is to ignore the evidence all around.

Photo by Evan Vucci/AP Photo

Likewise, Trump’s suggestions — that NATO should be disbanded, allies must support bigger militaries and Vladimir Putin is not the antichrist — have triggered outrage from the political elites. But they are heavily invested in the status quo. They benefit from the continuous international summits on expense accounts, the creation of reams of nuanced position papers and their stints as pundits at conferences and on television. Then there are those who benefit from the care and feeding of America’s gigantic military and diplomatic machines.

But Trump resonates with the guy in Ohio, whose factory closed and who now works in a hardware store for $8 an hour. That worker is paying for this wonderful world order and getting damaged by it.