Damien Grant

interview with a prepared list of Trump accomplishments he crafts into a narrative more succinctly than the president himself.

‘‘Look at the US economy,’’ he tells me. ‘‘It’s booming. Unemployment is low, the lowest ever for African-Americans. Wage growth is strong at 3 per cent. His policies have delivered energy security. I like his tough approach to China, the most authoritarian government in the world, while Wellington just ‘raises concerns’ about Beijing’s horrendous human rights record. Trump’s trade policies also look like they may pay off.’’

But Gibson, a self-described centre-right conservative, is under no illusions Trump is just your run-of-the-mill right-wing politician whose appeal can be explained strictly, or even mostly, in policy terms.

‘‘There’s something affirming in the way he says what many of us think. He’s unashamedly patriotic, doesn’t feel the need to apologise. He represents a pushback against the radicalism of the Left, who have become preoccupied with intersectionality and radical identity politics. The forgotten Americans, who came out for Trump in the Midwest, just want the chance to get ahead in life. They just want hard work rewarded. They can’t relate to the Left’s victim hierarchy which treats people as categories, not individuals.’’

This critique of the Left, Gibson contends, is taking hold among his friends and contemporaries. Among his close friends, he says, not one is voting for Labour or the Greens this year -- and, he insists, ‘‘that was not the case three or six years ago’’. Looking ahead to our election, Gibson, somewhat surprisingly, urges National and ACT to lay low on combustible culture war issues, focusing instead on economic management. He also thinks Simon Bridges could learn a thing or two about simple political communication from the straight-talking Trump.

Despite Gibson’s insistence that Trump should be judged on his record, the Make America Great Again movement relies first and foremost on Trump’s visceral appeals, not policy pronouncements. There’s little in Trump’s actual governing agenda that will uplift the lives of the ‘‘forgotten American’’, or resolve the social and economic malaise that propelled their anger – or his election. In fact, Trump’s signature accomplishment – trillions in tax cuts for corporations and the already-wealthy – have seen on wearing his Make America Great Again cap in public

economic inequality rise. Factories in the Industrial Midwest, a region key to Trump’s electoral fortunes, continue to retrench and disappear. Other big-ticket MAGA agenda items – such as ‘‘building the wall’’, locking up the children of asylum-seekers or scrapping lightbulb regulations – are unlikely to improve anyone’s lives in tangible ways. But they are artfully calibrated pitches to grievance.

The Washington Post records more than 16,000 instances of the president making false or misleading claims in his first three years as president but, at a gut level, in the realm of pure emotion, Trump is remarkably, disarmingly, truthful. Aside from those rare moments when he recites unconvincingly from a teleprompter, his psyche is on vivid display. It’s so raw it can be painful to watch. The constant need to embellish and fabricate a reality in which he is the perpetually-besieged hero; his love-hate yearning for acceptance among the very elites he disparages; his desperate amplifications of praise from the most obscure corners of the internet; his obsession with outdoing his predecessor, Barack Obama, in even the most trivial ways. In this sense, what you see really is what you get with Trump. He may not tell it like it is, but he shows an almost child-like emotional vulnerability, a woundedness, that sounds to his base like courageous truth-telling.

Meanwhile, back in Ka¯ piti, Mum is getting nervous about the prospect of Trump’s re-election. ‘‘I’ve learned to expect the worst,’’ she says, ‘‘and maybe by expecting the worst, I’ll be pleasantly surprised’’. Dad, usually the more optimistic of the two, is similarly concerned: ‘‘If he’s re-elected, he will feel free to do whatever he wants, and the American experiment in constitutional government will be greatly, maybe irretrievably, damaged’’.

Phil Quin is a freelance writer and avid follower of US politics

The climate change booklet produced by the Ministry of Education is certainly educational.

Just don’t expect to learn much about anthropogenic climate change.

According to the ministry, ‘‘climate change is, at its core, an equity issue’’, which is a surprise.

I had been under the impression that it was a chemical one. Something to do with carbon molecules, cows and Al Gore. Seems I was wrong.

The controversial document is a political treatise, not an environmental one.

In its 52 pages there is surprisingly little material on how an increase in carbon and methane is affecting our climate, but rather a lot on what students should be doing about it.

Greta Thunberg, school strikes and activism are all referenced positively.

Children are encouraged to give up meat for a day, urged to commit to actions and are to be taught about equity, including ‘‘social justice, intergenerational equity and finite resources’’.

The Industrial Revolution is described as a catalyst for the increase in carbon, but omits its benefits to civilisation and, in case the kids remain unconvinced, teachers are urged to show students pictures of polar bears on melting ice.

A deeply emotive trick to deploy on children.

Anticipating dissent even in the classroom, the ministry advises teachers: ‘‘When discussing the material, teachers may encounter students who cope through avoidance, denial, diversionary tactics, wishful thinking and a range of other coping mechanisms.’’

Most remarkably the document has a section on confronting a series of climate myths and the scientific answers. ‘‘Climate scientists are in it for the money,’’ is answered with the assertion that they could earn more working for the oil industry.

This is not just misleading, it is a lie. And it is a lie that

‘‘I’ve been screamed at from car windows. People think you’re a racist Nazi.’’ Trump supporter Gibson,

The heart of the problem is that the environmental and the social justice movements have merged.