Trump's royal fetish isn't a turn-on for liberal Sussexes

The prospect of life under the new president-elect could be enough to send the couple packing, suggests Tessa Dunlop

- Tessa Dunlop

In the middle of the night, as it became glaringly apparent that Donald Trump was storming to an eye-popping second term after a four-year hiatus, pundits scrambled to rewrite their briefs - and one voice stood out. With haunting clarity, historian Dominic Sandbrook called time on the truth that has been hiding in plain sight.

He explained that not only was much of blue-collar America not ready for a female commander-in-chief, but Kamala Harris’s unsuitability for the role of president ran far deeper than that.

According to Sandbrook’s thesis, too many Americans are “suspicious of someone from the coast, from the big cities, part of the liberal metropolitan elite”. In layman’s terms, if you were seeking a candidate with a chance of beating Trump (something the Democrats singularly failed to do), “you wouldn’t pick a mixed-race woman from California”.

Ooof! The truth hurts, especially when tinged with real-time misogyny and racism. Lots of Americans will be hurting today, not least that other Californian, mixed-race, big-city woman, Meghan (nee Markle), who, like Kamala Harris, personifies the liberal metropolitan elite. The actor-cum-duchess will have taken the Democrats’ thumping defeat personally, and with good reason.

Like so many Hollywood luminaries, Meghan made clear her disdain for Trump early on. In 2016, the then Suits actor told a US chat show that the prospect of a Trump presidency left her thinking: “I might just stay in Canada.”

Two months later, she went on a blind date with Prince Harry – and, a mere five months after her declaration of contempt for the presidential candidate, Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States of America. Presumably, his entry into the White House made her decision to marry a prince and move to Britain all the more straightforward.