BY STEWART SLATER

We are a visual species. Asked to describe what you see, you have a vast range of words at your disposal, covering size, shape, colour etc. Asked to describe something you smell, once you’ve cycled through “sweet”, “bitter” and so on, you will quickly find yourself resorting to a comparison – “it smells like rotten eggs”, for example. Thus, our fondness for images, particularly those which we think capture the essential truth of an event.

The books which will be written about the recently concluded election in America will, I suspect, resort to the same picture for their covers – Donald Trump, fresh from his unscheduled meeting with the sniper’s bullet, pumping his fist in the air, blood running down his face. It is an iconic photo, no doubt – “the most bad-ass thing I’ve ever seen” in the words of an internet tycoon whose name does not rhyme with tusk.

But how much does it tell us? Perhaps it encouraged some men, attracted by his obvious toughness to turn out. Perhaps some Latin voters liked the obvious machismo.  But there was no real movement in the polls after the shooting. Indeed, while the polls were far from perfect, there was little movement in them throughout the campaign, both candidates staying within the margin of error. None of the events (such as the “they’re eating the dogs” debate or the “garbage” joke) which commentators claimed were going to be decisive actually were.

More insightful, I think, is another picture. Not one of Donald Trump, but one of Terry Bollea. Mr Bollea is better known by his ring name, Hulk Hogan, and it was in character that he turned up to the infamous Madison Square Garden rally being pictured on stage in vest, feather boa, and bandana stomping around waving an American flag. Brother. In deference to the occasion, the “Hulkamaniacs” Mr Bollea has spent decades cultivating (he is 71) were renamed “Trumpamaniacs” and MSG became “Donald Trump’s House”. Brother. Biceps were curled, the vest was torn and the crowd went wild.

Trump’s closeness to the wrestling community has been oft-noted – he is a member of the WWE Hall of Fame, his first Administrator of the Small Business Administration was Linda McMahon, wife of Vince, the WWE’s founder, and he was endorsed not only by Mr Bollea, but by Mark Calaway, better known as The Undertaker, a similarly long-lasting champion.

But while most cultures have felt the need to invent some form of wrestling as an outlet for male aggression, that beamed nightly into American homes derives specifically from the carnivals of the 1800’s. They would roll into town, fights would be staged (in both senses of the term), the populace would be entertained and off it would roll. Much of this remains – the lights, the music, the larger-than-life characters, the (eventual) triumph of good over evil in what is more a gymnastic drama than a sport; all hark back to the travelling show.

What can be said of wrestling can, of course, also be said of a Trump rally. There is glitz, there is glam. There is merchandise. There is food. There is a range of speakers offering a range of entertainment. There is often some religion, albeit often of the sort associated with tents in the Deep South (snakes and speaking in tongues). It is a day out for all the family.

At the middle of it all, of course, is the man himself, the living instantiation of that most American archetype, the carnival huckster. There is the slightly outlandish appearance. There are the slightly outlandish utterances. There is the never-ending spiel, replete with hyperbole – Barnum’s greatest show on Earth becomes Trump’s greatest nation on Earth. There is the vast array of opportunities for gain, offered only to a select few, of course. There are quality goods, available for a short time only, of course (those with the oddly specific amount of $3,645.47 to spare may wish to purchase a Victory Gold Medallion designed by the once and future President himself and available from Trump Coins).

Carnivals are demotic in a way a concert hall is not. The audience does not passively receive a performance but participates in it (the carnie does not throw a ball at the coconut for you, joining the tenor in a rendition of Nessun Dorma will result in your being shown the door) and thus, the huckster must be likable or, at the very least, relatable. Not like a star, a class apart, but someone like yourself. Someone who can be liked and who tries to be liked, even if you know they cannot be fully trusted.

Many have professed themselves shocked by Trump’s victory even if it was always, in reality, quite possible (Harris never achieved the polling lead needed to make her the favourite to win the Electoral College) and was clearly increasingly probable by Tuesday afternoon U.K. time (early returns showed a substantial turn-out advantage for the Republicans). As so often in such cases, rather than blame themselves, pundits have decided to blame the people for choosing someone so manifestly unfit. How could they be so stupid/racist/sexist? I really thought they were better than that.

Alternatively, the electorate chose to treat a man who has lived his life as a carnival huckster as a carnival huckster, writing off as hyperbole his more outlandish claims. Once again, pundits took him literally and thought him unelectable, the public took him seriously and elected him. There is no evidence that any immigrant ever ate any dog, but there is evidence of harm caused by almost unchecked immigration into unprepared communities. It is unlikely that he will be able to end the Ukraine War on day one, but the current situation is unsustainable in terms both of American weapons and Ukrainian bodies. Hucksters never give you everything they promise, but they often give you something – no-one ever wins the big teddy bear, but many people take home smaller ones.

The Democrats, by contrast offered little. All was well be it the economy, immigration or geopolitics, so, like progressives across the Western world, the best that could be offered was not letting things get worse. Bill Clinton knew that what matters is not the macro economic numbers but the state of the electorate’s pocketbooks but his successors forgot.

And they forgot in a particularly de haut en bas style, Harris adopting the tone of a kindergarten teacher with a particularly slow class of four year-olds. Trump worked in McDonald’s, she bought jazz records from a specialty vinyl store. Like every good huckster, he took every opportunity to appear like a man of the people, posing with policemen, firemen and everyone who asked, she sought out the endorsement of Beyonce, deployed to tell the lower orders what to do.

I noted a few years back that Britain generally chooses the posher of the candidates to be Prime Minister.  In America, the situation is reversed, the nominee who can most convincingly play working class usually making it to the White House. Preppy George Bush was no match for hard scrabble Bill Clinton but his son laundered his Yale education sufficiently well through Texas to see off Gore and Kerry – ordering his Philly Cheese Steak “wit” (accompanied by the type of “cheese” which comes from a can) showed junior’s man of the people credentials, apparently. Decades of diplomatic dinners made Hillary Clinton no match for Trump but faced with Joe “son of Scranton” Biden, he was toast.

For while Trump is financially rich, he is culturally poor. His fondness for the Golden Arches is well known, while his go-to meal when dining out is a steak, well-done, not an eleven-course tasting menu in a Michelin-starred restaurant. His musical likes are middle of the road and his idea of tasteful interior decoration is to slap gold leaf on everything he sees. He leads the life his voters would if they won the lottery. The huckster has been taken out of the carnival, but the carnival has not been taken out of the huckster. Decades in the metropolitan law and politics have made Harris, by contrast, financially (relatively) poor, but culturally rich, eating food and pursuing interests unheard of many in fly-over country. To many, he is an understandable figure to whom, through experience and received wisdom, they know how to relate, she, by contrast, is not only unknown, but almost unknowable.

Much is being made of this election as a “realignment”, Latinos and Blacks moving to the Republicans. But in challenging times, the electorate plumped for a man willing to acknowledge them, a man who they thought they understood well enough to be able to deal with, a man who, if he didn’t do all he said, would at least try to do something. Trump can’t be the only one. Can he?

Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.