TONY PARSONS
Kamala Harris’ celebrity fans won it for Trump – when you can’t pay bills you don’t need Oprah telling you how to vote
For better or worse, Trump World is the new reality
LADY Gaga, Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Julia Roberts, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Cardi B, Katy Perry – your candidate just took one hell of a beating.
It felt like Kamala Harris had every huge star of stage and screen rooting for her victory.
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I can’t recall any political campaign that ever had so much celebrity stardust sprinkled over it.
Trump had, er, Elon Musk. He also had a couple of very old tunes on heavy rotation.
God Bless The USA, the creepy, corny, country and western dirge by Lee Greenwood that is considered Donald’s theme tune — “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free!” Lee croons defensively.
And, of course, YMCA — “They have everything for young men to enjoy, you can hang out with all the boys!”
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It was not much of a playlist. But 73million Americans still voted for him. And it feels like something significant just happened at this US election.
All those stars coming out for Kamala thought they were going to swing it.
And perhaps they did. For Donald Trump.
More likely, all that starry campaigning did not matter a damn.
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Perhaps all those millionaires were simply irrelevant to working-class Americans of all races worried about crime, immigration and the economy. And isn’t it glaringly obvious?
Celebrity endorsements do not work. They are counterproductive. The ordinary American does not need Oprah Winfrey to tell them how to vote.
Kamala Harris campaign spent $10million every day & STILL lost, rages Biden camp as daggers drawn for infighting Dems
Indeed, when you are worried about paying next month’s bills, having Oprah’s privileged finger wagged in your face is highly likely to have exactly the opposite effect of the one Winfrey wants.
Trump’s landslide was built on a broad, blue collar, multi-racial coalition. A convicted felon? Well, yes — but that is largely because his political enemies weaponised the legal system.
It rebounded, just like the attempt to assassinate him. Every attempt to kill Trump off — sometimes literally — made him more popular.
His battle cry, Make America Great Again, was aimed totally at a domestic audience.
But it will have reverberations around the world.
Mountains of ordure
In Ukraine and the Middle East, where wars are raging. In Europe and Taiwan, where generations have taken American military defence for granted.
In South America and Haiti, where millions — and not all of them pet-eating criminals, Donald — dream of a better life in the United States.
And here in the UK, where Labour are only now starting to appreciate the vast gap between acting like spotty student activists eager to find fascists under the bed and a grown-up government.
It was undeniably glorious to see Kemi Badenoch, in her first PMQs as the new Tory leader, making Labour’s front bench squirm as she asked if they were ready to apologise for the mountains of ordure that they have poured on Donald Trump’s Tango-tinted bonce over the years.
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But when my tears of mirth subsided, I was left with a sinking feeling. Our relationship with our closest ally has been endangered, degraded, and diminished by the witless abuse of virtue-signalling comrades.
And that’s no laughing matter. One of the main reasons the UK believed life would be wonderful outside of the European Union was the widespread expectation of a US-UK trade deal.
What chance of a US-UK trade deal when our lame duck Foreign Secretary David Lammy called Trump, “no friend of Britain . . . not fit to hold public office . . . a racist KKK (Ku Klux Klan) and Nazi sympathiser . . . yes, if Trump comes to the UK I will be out protesting on the streets”.
Whatever you think of him, Donald Trump is the most pro-British American president in history.
He is proud of his Scottish roots, worshipped our late Queen and carries none of the historical resentments of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Trump loves the UK. But Labour have made their loathing for him clear and it can do nothing but harm to our country.
New reality
And it is impossible to imagine a US-UK trade deal ever happening with a socialist Prime Minister in Downing Street, no matter how much Trump loves the Royal Family and enjoys playing 18 holes in the Highlands.
Yet while it is true that Donald is notoriously thin-skinned, he also has a surprising capacity for forgiveness.
Even his own Vice President, JD Vance, was a critic until 2020, publicly calling him a “total fraud” who did not care about ordinary Americans (and saying far worse in private).
But JD became a true Trump believer. He kissed the gaudy ring.
It is impossible to imagine Labour credibly making the same conversion — no matter how shamelessly Starmer and Lammy grovel to Trump now.
When Donald Trump is sworn in as President in January, he will be 78 and a half — the oldest ever president.
And yet Trump, and all he represents, feels like the future.
For all the accusations of racism that are thrown at him, it was Latinos, Asian-Americans and black Americans — especially men — who came out for Trump.
A vote for him was a rejection of foreign wars, unfettered immigration and the pious self-harm of net zero.
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That’s all out. Watch The Donald start fracking. Watch the American economy roar.
Yet if Trump getting elected means that American support for Ukraine is wound down, and Putin can claim any kind of victory, then that will be a tragedy for Ukraine, Europe and humanity.
But, for better or worse, Trump World is the new reality.
And it is the polar opposite of the high-tax, big-state, shagged-out socialism that the British people have decided to give one last try.
Kamala Harris muttered many banalities about “joy” and “kindness” but had nothing much to say about the economy, or crime, or immigration — and perhaps she should have because more than ten million illegal immigrants came into the USA when she was Vice President.
The Democrats got everything wrong. From sticking with bird-brained President Biden when he was clearly unfit for office.
Then leaving Joe’s dismissal so late that cackling Kamala was the only feasible option to face Trump.
And Harris herself thinking that the economy was a minor issue compared to reproductive rights.
Kamala tried to run a feminist campaign, appealing directly to women, hopefully outflanking “mis- ogynist” Trump. But when Americans addressed the cameras, they sounded more concerned about rising prices than reproductive rights.
Not fascism, but hope
Trump, instinctively — for he is a businessman more than he is anything — understands the ordinary concerns of ordinary Americans.
I fear for Ukraine, that it may be betrayed. And I fear for Prince Harry, that he may be deported.
And I worry that the special relationship that won two world wars and secured peace for the planet is now in ruins, destroyed by the ravings of Trump-hating socialists on Twitter at exactly the moment when the bond should be growing ever closer.
And when Trump talks about mass deportations, I can’t help but wonder what that will look like in the cold light of day.
But the people have spoken in America — the forgotten majority from all races who feel ignored by the ruling elite, their lives despised and their concerns dismissed.
America is hurtling towards a low-tax small state where the animal instinct of the entre-preneurial spirit is unleashed, just as our high-tax, big-state Labour government wages its war on aspiration. We are on different paths now.
America will be dialling down net zero madness just as Ed Miliband tells us we will have to think carefully about boiling a kettle. And it is Donald Trump, JD Vance and Elon Musk who look more like the future than Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband.
Trump has sometimes made me cringe, not least because of the way he has talked about women.
This most transactional of Presidents will make his fellow Americans better off.
Tony Parsons
When he was recorded saying, “Grab them by the pussy”, he was not referring to making a citizen’s arrest on pet-eating illegal immigrants.
But here is the bottom line — this most transactional of Presidents will make his fellow Americans better off. It is as simple as that.
Because ultimately, that is what Trump cares about most.
Not saving the planet. Not healing the world.
But the dollar in your pocket.
In the end, conservatives are happy that pious, pronoun-obsessed, defund-the-police America has been crushed under Trump’s landslide.
But the crazy orange man is not always easy to love.
I could not give a damn what he did with Noughties porn star Stormy Daniels but his refusal to accept the result of the 2020 Presidential election was an affront to democracy.
And how can you not wince when you hear the deranged way he talks about his political enemies?
Own people first
How can you not look askance when — in a nation where everyone was an immigrant at some point — Trump talks about immigrants as if they are all dining tonight on Fido and Tiddles?
But despite his erratic nature, and wild mouth, Trump offers optimism to the people of his own country. He offers not fascism — but hope.
That is what he is ultimately selling. That things will get better on his watch. That crime will come down.
That the borders will be secured. That the bills will be easier to pay.
And that he will put his own people first.
Try as I might, I just can’t imagine Sir Keir Starmer saying that nothing matters more to him than the welfare of the British people.
And to Brits constantly being fed doom and gloom, Trump’s genuine belief in a better tomorrow for his country feels like the first ray of sunshine on Christmas Day.
“We’re going to make you very happy!” Donald Trump told his countrymen.
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He is going to make them HAPPY?
We need some of that feelgood factor on this side of the pond.
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