Commission for The New Statesman Christmas Special. Trump and his counter-elite are the face of modernity. The old liberal order is sinking fast because it doesn’t understand the world as it is.

‘Absurdities abound after Trump’s triumph. Sinking liberal elites fear the imposition of a sinister right-wing world-view, but Trumpian ideology is an inchoate hybrid. The unfettered market is celebrated as an engine of innovation, but the process of creative destruction extolled by Joseph Schumpeter and Friedrich Hayek must operate in an economy sheltered by tariffs from foreign competition. Libertarian individualism and techno-futurism cohabit with Christian fundamentalism. A neo-isolationist yearning for autarchy jostles with a willingness to intervene wherever US interests may be at stake, cold realism with a cult of American greatness that echoes neo-conservatism. Nothing is settled or fixed.‘

Thank you to Creative Director Gerry Brakus.