Trump towers, by Mark Latham.

n his 1977 book The Age of Uncertainty, the American economist John Kenneth Galbraith depicted the great leaders of history as carrying a single characteristic in common. ‘It was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time’, he wrote, ‘This and not much else is the essence of leadership.’ …

While leftist elites sneer at the worries of the American people as ‘a basket of deplorables’, Trump has taken them seriously. With patriots objecting to illegal migrants and contraband pouring across their southern border, the new President is building a wall. With workers facing job insecurity and declining competitiveness, Trump is cutting taxes and slashing business regulation to reignite economic growth. With people in suburban and small-town America worrying about the rise of political correctness and identity politics, Trump is taking a stand for the cultural norms of free speech and meritocracy. He is confronting unequivocally the major anxieties of his people, giving his Presidency the green shoots of greatness. …

The President’s foreign policy critics are parroting a single line: that Trump has vacated the post-World War II tradition of American global leadership. Yet to people across the Western World worried about a loss of civilisational values, Trump is seen as a strong global leader. He has inspired a generation of activists committed to the fight for Western culture, and to defend the timeless ideals of nation state Enlightenment and the Judeo-Christian tradition. It might not be a fight that excites a Macron, a Merkel or a Theresa May, but so what? It’s the struggle of our lifetime, to push back the march of post-modernism and cultural Marxism through public institutions.

hat-tip Stephen Neil