Like her soulmate Trump, Hanson hasn’t flamed out. We need to understand why

August 7, 2026 — 11:40am

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From the moment he descended his golden escalator, Donald Trump came coated not just in tangerine-coloured make-up but teflon. Controversies that would have been disqualifying for conventional presidential candidates slid off him like a perfectly cooked omelette from a non-stick pan. Scandal actually became his friend, because it made him the centre of attention. Nothing he did or said ultimately blocked his march to the White House.

Trump’s fiery launch speech, in which he attacked Mexican immigrants, was widely seen as self-immolatory at a time when the Republican Party, following successive defeats in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, needed to attract more Latino support. For a reality TV star whose bone spurs helped him avoid conscription during the Vietnam War, mocking Republican senator John McCain for being held captive for 5½ years in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp was akin to shooting himself in both feet.

As for refusing to disavow the support of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, it was surely a political extinction event. And yet Trump continued to soar in the polls. Even when, in the final weeks of the campaign, an out-take was aired from the show Access Hollywood in which Trump boasted of sexually molesting women, he remained a viable candidate. After his shock victory, it emerged more white female voters had backed him........

© The Sydney Morning Herald