Trumpism is very familiar to Europeans

IT WAS a moment to make French nationalists spill their pastis. Marine Le Pen, a populist seeking the presidency of France, launched her campaign this month by praising American voters, saying they had “shown the way” by electing Donald Trump. After all, Mr Trump is a star of American reality television who subsists on Diet Coke, Big Macs and exceedingly well-done steaks. France uses legal quotas to keep Hollywood films and American TV hits at bay, and made a national hero of a sheep farmer (now an elected member of the European Parliament) for attacking a McDonald’s restaurant with a tractor.

Ms Le Pen has tactical reasons to embrace Mr Trump. As her National Front rises in the polls, she calls his election part of a global “awakening” that will next carry her to victory. But to a degree often missed in America, she is an ideological soulmate, too.

By American lights, Mr Trump is a puzzle. On the one hand he favours proposals loved by the right, pledging to lower taxes and deregulate business. On the other he backs ideas cherished on the left, as when he says government should offer health insurance “for...