The 2016 gender gap: Is Trump playing the man's card?

Washington

THE electoral insurgency of Donald Trump has not only set the American political scene on fire; it has also created an industry devoted to figuring out how a former Democrat and liberal New Yorker (who was never elected to public office) has taken over the Republican Party in around six months and could end up being elected as president in about that amount of time.

Pundits have suggested that Mr Trump's rise to power reflects the response by the economically squeezed, white blue-collar working class to the forces unleashed by globalisation, including immigration and trade.

And indeed, the results of numerous polls lead to the conclusion that Mr Trump derives his support from white voters who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector, who fear that their traditional culture is…