POINT OF ORDER
Snatch comfort from the jaws of victory
Americans are about to discover what South Africans have during the Zuma presidency: a populist politician who is terrible at running a country, writes Tim Cohen
Just before the US elections, a radio commentator claimed Hillary Clinton was the luckiest presidential candidate in history. The implication was she faced the worst candidate in history. But politics is a curious and vengeful beast. Turns out Donald Trump was the lucky one. The news commentary about the election seems underpinned by what might be considered a self-conscious underlying insight that Trump won because of the incipient anger of — let’s be blunt about this — rednecks and hillbillies, often referred to as "white non-college-educated voters". The idea does have merit. According to the Pew Research Centre, university graduates preferred Clinton by a nine-point margin, which is a big difference from 2012, when voters with and without college degrees supported Obama more or less equally. The idea fits neatly into the larger picture of global shifts and the rise of nationalism. We have heard this ad nauseam.But if you look closely, there are a number of contra-indicators that...
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