This essay was written in response to Gideon Rachman’s invitation to readers to sit his ‘2066 history exam’. Of 170 entries, the FT is publishing the best five (see panel for the others). This piece addresses the challenge: Donald Trump was not an accident but the logical culmination of long-term trends in politics and society. Discuss.
Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election at first seemed a definitive rejection not only of Mr Trump but of the very notion of Trumpism. He lost the black vote by 94 points, the Hispanic vote by 66 points and the female vote by 16 points — and the demographic and cultural trends pointed to an ever larger non-white population and an increasingly empowered female population.
No matter how angry white male voters became, simple maths implied that they had blown their last chance “to take their country back”.