White House comedy distracts America from the age of automation and looming job losses

Niall Ferguson says with the White House reduced to providing fodder for late-night comics, and all eyes on @realDonaldTrump, the spectre of human redundancy amid a speedy tech revolution is being ignored

Reading Time:4 minutes

Anthony Scaramucci, the new US communications director, speaks to reporters about firing White House aides to stop leaks to the press, outside the West Wing on July 25. Photo: EPA

Published: 12:37pm, 31 Jul 2017Updated: 6:58pm, 31 Jul 2017

The US presidential election last year was a choice between two second world war acronyms: snafu (situation normal, all f***** up) and fubar (f***** up beyond all recognition).

American voters faced a choice between a candidate who personified the political status quo, and a candidate who promised the disruption of that status quo. With Hillary Clinton, there was the certainty that nothing much would change. With Donald Trump there was the chance of quite a lot of change, but the risk was that it would be change for the worse. Twelve months ago, it was dawning on me that there might just be enough voters willing to gamble on Trump, knowing full well that the outcome might be fubar.

Since Trump’s election, I have tried to swim against liberal opinion. The more commentators proclaimed the advent of tyranny and the end of the republic, the more I tried to argue that the Trump administration belongs firmly in the tradition of American populism. The more journalists cried “Watergate”, the more I tried to show that Trump isn’t Richard Nixon: with his dynastic approach and louche personality, he more closely resembles John F Kennedy.

US President Donald Trump with (from left) then chief of staff Reince Priebus, Vice-President Mike Pence, senior adviser Steve Bannon, then communications director Sean Spicer and then national security adviser Michael Flynn, as he speaks by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on January 28. Photo: Reuters

President shakes up his administration by banishing political pros

My goal has not been to defend Trump, but rather to expose the inconsistencies of his critics. However, the time has arrived to break the bad news to those who voted for Trump.