The recent UK election delivered a thumping approval of Brexit and a fresh powerful mandate for newly elected Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It highlighted among other aspects the fast-shifting political ground in Europe, growing public disenchantment with centralisation and public resentment of the British Parliament’s subjugation to the EU and creeping European bureaucracy.

The juxtaposition between the politics of the UK and those in the US has never been so stark. On the same day the Queen was opening the new parliament of Prime Minister Johnson in London with the usual pomp and ceremony, President Donald  Trump became the third president to be impeached in US political history.  There are stark differences in the personal make-up and individual characteristics of the two leaders and equally significant differences between the two systems of government – with the US governed by a hard-written constitution and the UK mostly governed by conventions and traditional parliamentary ethics.

Yet, despite these glaring disparities, a new political ideology common to both sides of the Atlantic had emerged.

Trump’s catch cry about draining the swamp in Washington is a euphemism for reducing government and decentralisation. Johnson’s compelling orations during the recent campaign was about the UK regaining control of its own destiny by exiting the EU and severing ties with a multitude of EU institutions; all of which seem hell bent on interfering in UK domestic policy.

Enter the now rampant nationalist isolationism of Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’, which has blended into a mutual mantra. Two leaders riding the crest of growing global populist nationalism.

Two nations, whose contributions to liberalism in terms of human sacrifice in defeating fascism in two world wars were second to none, are now bound by a common ideology of populist conservative nationalism sweeping the western world.

Trumpism is about political expediency in jumping on the bandwagon of… all of the isms which generations ago plunged the world into massive conflicts

The post-war liberal ideology of a generation ago, pitting the “people” against the elite, has now disappeared and been replaced by the ruinous hand-wringing social liberalism of Merkel and to a lesser extent Macron. The demographic face of Western Europe has forever changed through unregulated and uncontrolled immigration mostly from sub-Saharan Africa.

Trumpism has convulsed rational analysis of America’s political ideology. There is little point in looking for philosophical rhyme or reason in Trump’s actions.

Trumpism is about extreme knee-jerk reactions to developing situations which may threaten Trump policies.

Republicanism in the US was once defined as a concern about erosion of social and moral values and about liberty of individual rights. Now Republicans in Congress spend most of their time defending an amoral President who has no qualms about breaking the laws of the land in advancing his own electability.

Trumpism is about political expediency in jumping on the bandwagon of snowballing nationalism, trade protectionism, expansionism and all of the isms which generations ago plunged the world into massive conflicts.

Trumpism is about ignoring undeniably proven scientific evidence of climate change, suffocating pollution of the earth’s atmosphere, all justified in the interests of national economic gain.

US President Clinton once coined the phrase: “It’s about the economy, stupid”. Pullbacks on industrial activity or any other form of economic friction is a total anathema to the introspective nature of Trumpism. Make America great again and to hell with anyone else on the planet.

In fairness, China, Russia, India and to a lesser extent Australia have proceeded in a similar cautious manner. Political leaders operate on electability and not dealing with vulnerability... by paying lip service to causes without actually affecting the balance of their national economic forecasts which directly impacts on their future electability.

Trumpism is about brinkmanship in trade negotiations with China, about appeasement and condonement of murder in Saudi Arabia, about incomprehensible empathy with the expansionist Putin’s Russia, about bullying Ukraine’s newly elected leader into unjustified muck raking of a fellow US citizen to further Tump’s domestic interests.

Trump is about showmanship. The comic machinations with one of the world’s most dangerous leaders, Kim Jong-un, is a bizarre effort to earn plaudits from his media detractors.

Trump is enigmatic. Trump is difficult to read because Trump the person is inconsistent, contradictory and shifts his ideological base on an as-is-required basis.

Trumpism is firmly based on populist nationalism, a total abdication from the presidential global leadership role of presidents before him.

Politics is tribal, it’s partisan and Trump brings out extreme reactions from both sides of the political divide. But Trumpism is confrontational not just to his political opponents but also to the ideology and spirit of US Republicanism, pitting several republican congressmen and women against their own idealism by having to choose allegiance between the GOP and their own individual conscience.

Impeachment and the inevitable concomitant trial in the Senate will be a test of duty and allegiance to their oath of office against pragmatism and expediency for the benefit of their political party.