Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Trump's Victory Proves the U.S. Is Unexceptional

Donald Trump's winning strategy comes straight from successful Eastern European politicians' playbook

November 9, 2016 at 8:31 AM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

How sweet it is.
Photographer: Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg

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No need for tears and hand-wringing, U.S. friends. What happened on Tuesday was not a collapse of your democracy -- just a powerful blow to American exceptionalism and the misplaced arrogance of the U.S. elite.

Donald Trump won by using a mix that has been effective in Eastern Europe since the turn of the century: a combination of strong nationalism and an anti-corruption agenda.