We are comparing a lot of different people here it seems. Personally I wasn't talking about either Clinton or Macron when I made the comment about relating to disillusioned voters - just Trump and Le Pen. And I didn't mean so much how they got along personally with such voters, which as you noted has a lot to do with personal charisma and social skills, or lack thereof, but rather to which extent they might've had similar experiences, and personally have skin in the game.

That on its own doesn't; the whole picture of your statements about him on this board do though. Sure, you've also criticized him, but given that most people vote for the lesser of two evils among the two main candidates, the many times you've vehemently defended him would make one think that you also voted for him. If one didn't know better, that is.

To run with your analogy there, I believe what you meant to say about the wall is 'wonder why he is hiring so many CEOs of construction companies'.

I actually agree with you that I'd rather have a few more businessmen and a few less lawyers in the executive branch of government, but then in the departments where that makes sense, and competent people, not cases like DeVos. And the way that there's almost nobody in the cabinet who isn't a millionaire, other than political picks Carson and Perry, still seems rather significant.

I should add I'm reserving judgement on Tillerson - it was a very unconventional pick, could be a dud but if it does work out it would be a big mark in favour of Trump's judgement.

When you say 'which the left has priced out of the country', I'm not too sure whether you're referring purely to wages - pushed up by minimum wage laws in some cases and by unionized labour supported by the Democrats in others - or to increased social and environmental standards. But either way: bringing those jobs back on any meaningful scale would mean bringing them back at far lower wages and/or conditions than they used to offer. Which just isn't going to happen. Slowing down the trend of outsourcing may be feasible if you tackle those factors, and you might win some jobs from elsewhere in the US / western world, as indeed some Republican-led states have already shown in some ways. But you're just not going to get back most of the jobs that went to developing countries.

And on your first point, of course people will always try to optimize their taxes and find clever loopholes. The US can and should seriously simplify its tax law so at least the loopholes remain the exception rather than the rule, though - and so that the companies who thrive are the ones who handle their business the best, not the ones with the best tax lawyers.

Certainly, he hit on a few messages that worked tremendously well - and because those messages were on a few points rather in conflict with Republican orthodoxy, he maintained a first mover advantage and could keep standing out from the pack, while the majority of Republican voters who didn't support him was divided among many more conventional candidates. Then he won the general election by winning majorities in the right states - but at that time he was running only against Clinton, not Rubio or any other Republican.

Yeah, it's an achievement, to do that with those factors we discussed working against him. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating - so far I haven't seen anything he's done that would benefit the blue collar workers, or keep him from turning on him down the line. Then again, he just hasn't done much of anything yet - once he does, if ever, we'll see how they like him. Though that hardly means those voters will just come running back to the Democrats begging for forgiveness, as some seem to think.