Volgens George Blaustein, een Amerikaan in Nederland, is Trump een Europese Frankenstein: een samengesteld pakket nare Europese trekjes. Het enige écht Amerikaanse aan The Donald is zijn (bar slechte) stand-up comedy. (Pas op: Engels!)

The rise of Donald Trump represents the Europeanization of American politics. I teach American Studies at the University of Amsterdam, and students sometimes ask for my assessment of the elections. If I detect in their question an assumption that Donald Trump is uniquely or ridiculously American, I give them this answer: he is, but not in the way they think.

I am not the first to note the affinities between Trump’s ‘America First’ xenophobia and the ethnic nationalism of Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, or Nigel Farage (Trump supporters all). They are of the same species of illiberal democracy (we’ve come to call it ‘populism’). Trump’s ethnic nationalism is not new to the U.S.: it has long been a current of American politics. But it has...