That deep feeling of existential dread about Trump is warranted

In times past, normal times, back when the United States was sane, the reelection of Donald Trump would be a political impossibility, not merely for the crimes, corruption, treachery and scandals linked to the former president but the sheer overwhelming vigour of the US economy.

Unemployment has been below 4% for two years — the longest low unemployment streak since the 1960s. Inflation has fallen to 3.1%. Real wages growth has been increasing for two years, with nominal wage growth still above 5%; nearly 60% of American workers had a real wage increase over the last twelve months. Economic growth is 3.2%.

Bidenomics — a combination of old-fashioned industry policy linked to climate policy and the strategic goal of incapacitating China in key technology areas — has delivered for ordinary American workers.

None of that appears to matter, however, now that Biden and Trump have locked down their respective parties’ nominations. The two men are tied in polling, or Trump has a small lead, nationally, and Trump has a bigger advantage in important swing states that will determine the presidential election in November. Biden’s age, and his increasingly frequent verbal slips, has been a relentless focus of the US media, even as Trump’s own memory lapses, slurred words and confusion have prompted questions about cognitive decline.

Even on this issue, though, Trump has an advantage. He may only be three years younger than Biden, but articulacy and rationality are not necessary for his campaign. While friends and foes alike are saying Biden has failed to sell the achievements of Bidenomics and he needs to take ownership of them — that is, the president must effectively identify the evidence for and articulate the outcomes for ordinary Americans of his economic policies — Trump doesn’t need to articulate any coherent policy. His policy is himself; his mere existence is a policy platform. His inarticulacy, his confusion, his meandering statements, his predispositions to wild attacks and self-evident falsehoods — all are irrelevant to his supporters. They possibly endear him further.

When Trump describes his plans for a national missile shield as “they calmly walk to us, and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding … They’ve only got 17 seconds to figure this whole thing out. Boom. OK. Missile launch. Whoosh. Boom”, it does nothing to damage his credibility among his supporters. For the man who correctly boasted he could murder someone and people would still support him, incoherent speech is neither here nor there.

If we’re not already there, then a Trump success in November would mark the point at which the US electorate, aided by an enabling media, has resolved the issue of lack of economic certainty in favour of permanent anger, grievance, outrage and tribalism, over actually improving certainty through better, more secure jobs and higher wages.

Trump, and his media enablers like Fox News, have no interest in providing greater certainty — quite the opposite. They want voters ever angrier, ever more outraged, ever more resentful, about what they perceive as the unfairness meted out to them and the lavish benefits that they believe those they despise — Black people, liberals, women, elites, the “woke” — receive.

Needless to say, uncertainty is also Trump’s gift to the rest of the world. For policymakers elsewhere in other countries, the real chance, perhaps even probability, that Trump could return to the White House represents colossal uncertainty, even for conservatives. Trump promises a disastrous trade war, the abandonment of Ukraine and the embrace of Putin, the possibility of a US withdrawal from NATO, and the breach of agreements made with the previous administration, such as AUKUS. For a smaller, open economy that relies on a rules-based international order, however flawed, and a working global trade system, Trump represents a particular threat to Australia even before we get to the risk to the AUKUS project.

Trump, and his supporters, and the once-respected Republican Party — in which conservatives fought the good fight to drive out, and keep out, right-wing extremists — don’t have to puzzle over such rational policy concerns, relying on evidence and logic to determine what are the best outcomes. Their tools are tribalism, resentment, and division. For the rest of us, who are stranded in a world where actions have consequences and logic can’t be waved away, Trump isn’t a nightmare merely for progressives but also for anyone who values certainty. Ding, ding, ding. Boom. Whoosh.