Professor Desmond King writes about a ‘political earthquake with few US precedents’

Desmond King has contributed to an article on Medium (11 November) on the election of Donald Trump as the next US President.  The article also features contributions from other members of the University of Oxford, including the Chancellor, Chris Patten.

Desmond writes, “The election of Donald Trump is a political earthquake with few direct precedents. Andrew Jackson’s election as a populist in 1832 is one possibility. As a novice to elected office, President Eisenhower’s election in 1952 has that in common but little else. Ideologically, Trump’s radical reforms permit a loose analogy with Ronald Reagan’s agenda in 1980, but President Reagan was an outward-looking and internationally engaged White House incumbent. Trump is decidedly inward looking and isolationist. His conversion into a normal presidential candidate has been remarkable.”

You can read the full article here: https://medium.com/@Oxford_University/us-election-2016-views-from-oxford-6e3c1387086c#.w3tojl28e

It was also reposted on our blog: http://blog.politics.ox.ac.uk/political-earthquake-us-precedents/