US allies can help internationalism to trump 'Trumpism'

IT'S no secret that there is a growing anxiety among the pro-American elites and the public in Europe and Asia as they follow the American presidential campaign and detect rising support for populist White House aspirants among both Republican and Democratic primary voters.

Opinion polls indicate that a majority of voters on the Republican side now back the so-called "outsiders" that include New York billionaire Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a trend that has been reflected in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries early results. On the Democratic side, a 74-year-old self-proclaimed socialist, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, is running neck-and-neck with, and according to some polls, even beating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who not long ago was crowned as the presumptive frontrunner by the Democratic establishment.

Despite the ideological differences between the two leading GOP anti-establishment candidates, and between them and Senator Sanders, they do share the same level of scepticism about the need to continue maintaining the role of the US as the guardian of the liberal international order.