Trump's hanger speech

I actually watched the Trump speech last night. Two thing struck me about it. A, it was a brilliant innovation for a leader to go back to his base and say this is what I’ve done, Now though I’m not a big fan of it, surely that is what democracy is. B, and far more important in the middle of his speech, Trump indicated character of his true ideology – that of a rejection of civic cultural values defining a society, in favour of a philosophical pragmatism. This is made obvious by his statement about the nation-state. For him, the nation is not a cultural entity, but literally a physical geographical box where you and me just happen to live and pay taxes. Hence Trumps’ security mantra and travel ban is just that – a post-liberal rational view of security. What is missing from this is a normative view of politics. But that is just his point, society isn’t underpinned by moral values, but choices. This is why we, the left, don’t get him, we still want to believe in ideas.