Populist ideas may surprise you in next year’s elections

President Uhuru Kenyatta's motorcade, Parliament, 2018. [Beverlyne Musili, Standard]

This is “them against us” season. In America, Trump’s shocking 2016 win rode on a wave that demonised “them”; liberals, accused of “contaminating America’s values” and allowing “brown-skinned immigrants and Muslims” into “our America”.

In Britain, the shocking loss of the Remainers in the Brexit referendum was about “them”; that lot in Brussels putting Britain on the periphery of its own affairs, including having to answer to European Courts and allowing all manner...