The shiny appeal of Mr T's boorish bling

Donald Trump's tele-magnetism has never been about policy sophistication, or intellectual rigour. It's about shooting from the hip and debunking the napkin-folding, champagne flute-holding etiquette of elites. To think his 'billionairism' would be a turn-off for those straddling America's bottom-of-the-pyramid - the economically anxious and culturally sidelined - misses the point. Familiarity gained by speaking in a vernacular that's unfiltered, reckless, even rude, has not bred contempt here, but assurance.

Trump's pugilistic way of going about things may be uncouth. But like a young, perfectly middle-class Mick Jagger putting on cockney 'airs' to up his street cred as an anti-establishment performer, Trump has embraced boorishness as bling, discarding the careful euphemisms of 'People Like Them'. His language mirrors the barstool gripe, factory-floor complaint, kitchen-table frustration, and resonates through middle- and working-class America. What he does in the process is appropriate 'redneck' pride to serve up the new Republican red.

This resonance extends beyond the economically marginalised to anyone who seeks sociopolitical capital by aligning with the proactively unsophisticated - much like eschewing Mozart for country music, California white for pool-table Bud. In the end, whether it's Making America Great Again, or conflating 'decency' in politics or geopolitics with eye-rolling 'woke', Trump's appeal has become a badge of Authentic America®, making a stand with him a stand against elite condescension and the effete worship of nuance and splitting hair. As a result, the real-estate developer-president is seen by those who can't find Venezuela on the map, let alone care about airy-fairy notions like 'nation-state sovereignty', as someone who has provided the 'real people' (proxy) entry into a till-now exclusive club. Like it or not, by coming across as 'one of us' - and not part of the doner dinner set - Mr T has empowered a whole set of Americans by using the oldest trick in the book: an unapologetic show of power shared.