Our
cover story
this week describes how, regardless of what happens in America’s election next month, Donald Trump’s ideas will win. Kamala Harris has quietly adopted many of the policies that Mr Trump espoused when he was president. On trade, she would keep, in modified form, most of the tariffs from Mr Trump’s first term. On immigration, she has grown harsher, endorsing the most conservative bipartisan reform proposal this century. On energy, she has dropped her previous opposition to fracking. On China, she has been part of an administration that talked more diplomatically than Mr Trump, but was tougher in practice.
None of this means that the stakes in November are small. Far from it. Leave aside for a moment the candidates’ characters and attitudes to institutions, though these matter immensely. On policy, Mr Trump has grown more extreme since he left office. He now promises stiffer tariffs, more reckless fiscal policies and mass deportations. But what is striking is the degree to which he has made both parties move in his direction, setting the terms of the debate. Policy in America has become thoroughly Trumpified. |