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"The Trump era could last 30 years"

Thousands of protesters marched through central London in protest of Donald Trump's visit on Friday 13, July 2018. The organizers identified the turnout to be 250,000 people once the protest began.
Thousands of protesters marched through London in protest of Donald Trump's visit in July 2018. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

That's the arresting headline on Gideon Rachman's column in the Financial Times on Tuesday.

What's new: "In the years since 'Brexit-and-Trump,' a global populist movement has gathered momentum. The fact that Mr Trump is despised by much of the western establishment and media can obscure this point. But the US president has many admirers, some of them running governments around the world."

  • Why it matters: "Past precedent suggests that if a 'populist era' takes hold, it might last as long as three decades."
  • Wait! What? "[I]t already seems likely that future historians will look upon the events of 2016 as marking the beginning of a new cycle in international history. The bad news for anguished liberals is that these cycles can last quite a long time — 30 years seems to be about average."

Go deeper: The global elite has come to realize that the 70-year old power structure has collapsed

Populism