Donald Trump doesn't believe in much, doesn't want to do much.

One of the great drivers of the alienation that has made Donald Trump possible is that the growth in the American economy has been weak. In the decade from 2005 to 2015, there was not one year when the US hit three per cent growth. And to the extent there's been growth, virtually all of it has been collected by the top 10 per cent of the population. Obviously, if we knew how to make growth faster, we would. We don't. And it's very difficult to make growth more broadly shared. Because it's not just the US that has this problem.

America under 30 is a more non-whites place than America over 60. And we know that non-whites and whites vote differently.

I keep telling my American friends, "If you think of Donald Trump as only something that is happening inside the United States, you're missing it." Because there are Trump-like events happening across the Western world, in Warsaw Pact countries, in France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands. As we speak, the second-largest party in the Dutch legislature - who's more level-headed than the Dutch? - is Geert Wilders's party, which is a very Trump-like party, and they've got 33 out of 150 seats.

A presidential speech is always the work of many hands.

The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party.

A novel makes it possible to understand not just events, but the people who control the events; not only their choices, but also their motives.