Trump: rabble-rousing vulgarian or economic game-changer?

We are now seemingly destined to spend the next six months wondering which of Donald Trump’s many campaign pledges are real or partially real and which are bogus – said in the heat of the most divisive US election in living memory.

What makes the US president-elect so hard to weigh up is that he shoots from the hip like no other political leader; has a penchant for theatrics and bombast; and lies with seeming impunity.

Besides the vulgarity and rabble-rousing rhetoric, Trump cuts an unusual figure in US politics. He has made it to White House largely without the help of the big Republican party donors, posing an inherent threat to the clientelism that prefigures so much of US politics.

Unlike his predecessors, he also cherry-picks policies from both sides of the house. He takes tax cuts and less regulation from the Republican playbook but big spending on capital projects and gay rights from the Democrats, perhaps reflecting the fact that he was a Democrat up until 2008.

Markets appear to be taking Trump at his word at least on some things. The rally in shares since last week is predicated on his economic plans to cut taxes, repatriate overseas profits and launch a major capital spending programme.

The bond market rout, meanwhile, is centred on the belief his economic plans will usher in a new era of interest-rate hikes and inflation, forcing governments to offer a better return for investors.

All US election campaigns, however, produce high-flown pledges to clean up the increasingly complex tax code and all, to date, have failed to deliver a single piece of meaningful reform.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said as much last week when he rubbished speculation that Trump's ascendancy could halt the flow of investment into Ireland.

One also gets the distinct impression that Trump supporters won’t hold their candidate to account when it comes to keeping promises as closely as Clinton supporters would have theirs. Perhaps this relates to the cult of personality that he seems to represent.