In the case of Donald Trump or any highly polarising figure, the temptation is strong to adopt a totalising stance: either full support or absolute rejection. But intellectually and morally this can present a problem. The more honest and effective stance is critical discernment — opposing dangerous ideas or actions without closing our eyes to moments of accidental selectivity, structural disruption or necessary provocation.
Of course, assaults on liberty and other religions, nativism and authoritarianism rightly provoke strong opposition. These are not side notes, they’re defining and dangerous. But, on another plane, an argument can be made that acknowledges that trade war rhetoric and certain economic moves may have surfaced legitimate critiques of globalisation’s downsides (like offshoring, industrial hollowing and dependencies) even if the Trump administration’s actions are reckless, malicious or incoherent.
There’s more: uncritical support for Israel reflects a dangerous absolutism, but it also throws a cold light on deep contradictions in Western liberal diplomacy with regard to complex Middle East dynamics.
It can also be argued that New Cold War energy (against China primarily) exposes real geopolitical dependencies and vulnerabilities, even if Trump’s motivations are transactional, extractive and chaotic.
Should one throw the baby out with the bathwater? No, but nor should we bottle the bathwater and call it champagne. Perhaps the key question is whether we can oppose Trumpism as a political movement while still asking what parts of the system he disrupted (intentionally or malevolently) were overdue for interrogation. Sometimes even an appalling person can, wittingly or unwittingly, break a taboo worth fracturing.
So, rather than a blanket rejection or guilty appreciation, it may be possible to say that Trump’s presidency reveals a lot about the US, about liberal complacency, about institutional fragility. Most of it is damaging. But some of what surfaced must be faced, not buried under moral certainty. That’s not equivocation. That’s mature political critique. No?
Take for example his galling, shoot-from-the-hip, frankly hurtful and dangerous forays that attack trans people in the US. It is ugly, but across the pond a full bench of the UK supreme court (untainted by conservative packing of the judiciary Trump has achieved in the US) recently delivered a landmark judgment on nuanced aspects of the issue.
The UK Supreme Court’s ruling affirming the legal relevance of biological sex is important — especially for women’s prisons, sports, healthcare, rape shelters and the like, where fairness, safety and dignity rely on acknowledging physical reality – within the precepts of nondiscrimination.
While some argue that gender can be defined in ways beyond biology through identity or social roles, these definitions serve different purposes. Gender identity is a personal, internal sense of self. But biological sex is objective and materially relevant in certain legal and institutional contexts.
This isn’t about denying anyone’s identity — it’s about recognising that in some areas, sex does matter. Respect for identity and protection of sex-based rights can coexist, but clarity on when and where each applies is essential. That’s what the court has helped to reinforce.
I suppose I’m venting about the inability of many on the left — which I see myself as being broadly a part — to dissect these issues and accept some responsibility for facilitating the ascendency of Trump by failing to recognise what troubled so deeply the “basket of deplorables” Hilary Clinton discerned.
Let’s be clear, I’m no fan of Trump — on the contrary — but let’s be precise in our criticism; the very precision that might break through and address, in some way, certain concerns.
• Cachalia is a former DA MP and public enterprises spokesperson.
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