The key issues in this campaign were not climate change, legalising marijuana, or gay marriage; they were the economy, jobs, immigration, and terrorism

Donald J. Trump … won because he challenged all political convention and every single facet of the establishment

writes Piers Morgan.

He took on his 17 Republican rivals, the Democrats, the print and TV media, Washington and Wall Street elites, and sneering foreign leaders.

Even the Pope copped it when he dared to criticise him.

It wasn’t pretty, and occasionally it was downright ugly.

But it was also astonishingly effective in rallying support from the tens of millions of working class Americans struggling to make ends meet, many of whom who can’t even afford a train ticket to taste the rich and privileged air on the East and West coasts.

 Trump was their billionaire Robin Hood, a man who absolutely understood their cares and concerns and was prepared to stand up and fight for them against the ruling classes who didn’t seem to give a monkey’s cuss about them.

The key issues in this campaign were not climate change, legalising marijuana or gay marriage.

They were the economy, jobs, immigration, and terrorism.

Trump tapped into each of these with clear, defined, loud messages that he rammed home day in day out for 16 months and which grabbed huge media attention.

Love him or hate him, he was constantly speaking about things that Americans really worry about.

He also positioned himself against the corrupt, self-interested, lobby group infested political system that these same Americans feel strongly has enriched itself at their expense.

Hillary Clinton perfectly personified that system; a career politician who has repeatedly fleeced her positions of power to make millions of dollars for herself and her husband, and who carried with her a permanent smug sense of entitlement to be America’s first female president.

I was struck by the sheer scale of cocky complacency which enveloped the Clinton camp in the past few weeks as Election Day approached.

It smacked of precisely the same ‘there’s no way we can possibly lose to these ‘ignorant, racist, sexist Neanderthals’ establishment mentality that provoked Britain into Brexit in June.
Hillary herself dripped with haught, superior arrogance, referring to Trump’s supporters as a ‘basket of deplorables’.

I genuinely don’t think she ever gave any serious thought to losing to someone like Trump, who will now become the only President never to serve in political life or the military.

In that regard, she reminded me of General John Sedgwick, who reassured his Union Army men in the American Civil War as enemy snipers lurked: ‘They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance….’

General Sedgwick was then promptly shot dead before he could finish the sentence.

Hillary got her come-uppance for failing to identify what was really engaging her fellow, less well-off Americans and for constantly mocking those who were attracted to Trump’s outsider appeal.

I watched all the millennials sobbing in shock at her quickly dismantled ‘victory’ party last night and thought: ‘you all only have yourselves to blame.’

I saw them all tweeting their derision at Trump, snorting with incredulous laughter at what they saw as this idiot clown daring to play in their world.

As Trump roared around Middle America rallying the poor, jobless and downtrodden with increasingly powerful speeches offering hope and change, the Clinton brigade were bopping up and down to Hillary’s celebrity mates like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry all calling her ‘Madam President’ and saying how wonderful she was.

It showed how detached these people all were from the real world.

Their message was clear: ‘Hillary stands for wealth, fame and success.’

That’s fine if you live in mid-town Manhattan or Beverly Hills.

But not if you live in rural Florida, Texas or Pennsylvania, have lost your job, and can’t afford to buy your family enough food.

Trump instinctively got this.

The shock of Trump’s win was too much for many Clinton millennials to bear.

One stopped me in the street in New York late last night and pleaded: ‘Pray for us, please.’

Twitter and Facebook exploded with stunned rage, indignation and horror.

People who I know and respect behaved like this is the end of the world, an Armageddon moment from which the planet will never recover.

Oh pur-lease! Get over yourselves.

Trump’s never been the monster they said he was, just as Hillary has never been the perfect angel they claimed her to be.

 … Trump, against all the odds and mockery, just won the biggest prize of them all.