So, it's Hillary. It is arguable that in modern American politics there has never been a race for the White House that has pitted such a classical establishment figure as Clinton against such an iconoclastic figure as Donald Trump.
There are those who look forward to the presidential contest as a watershed moment in US democracy. Well, maybe. But let’s be frank. Trump represents all that is most alarming in American redneck politics. He has seized the high ground in the debate because he has produced the simplistic rhetoric that promises that all the ills that assail US voters can be fixed with a few common sense measures. These include battening down on the entry of foreigners, particularly Muslims and Mexicans
Trump is winning so many of the arguments and may even win the presidency not because of the easy solutions that he peddles but because so many Americans distrust the political establishment. They have had it up to the gills with empty platitudes from a ruling elite that wants to bamboozle them into endorsing it for four years, but then proceeds to ignore its promises. Most voters see that Washington Beltway politics rolls on its dubious, if not corrupt, way regardless of what ordinary Americans think.
Clinton could blow Trump away tomorrow if she was prepared to get down and dirty and really address the same issues that are garnering Trump an increasing tally of support. But this she cannot do. She is trapped within her own record of saying whatever her particular audience wants to hear. Her political history is a story of embarrassment, failure and lies.
As the leaked Democratic Party emails demonstrate, the Democratic political establishment was prepared to spare no effort to ensure that her only real challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders, was robbed of any chance of winning the party’s nomination. The mystery is that even now that the evidence, possibly courtesy of Russian hackers, has been produced to demonstrate Democratic Party dirty tricks, “the Bern,” as his worshipping, largely young supporters call him, has not called foul. Instead, he is urging his substantial voter base to back Hillary. The chances are, however, that a not insignificant portion of his supporters will choose to stay home on voting day.
Sanders spent much of his battle for the nomination disparaging Democratic machine politics in general and its preeminent exponent Hillary Clinton in particular. What, it has to be asked, has changed? Clinton is still the shape-shifting chameleon she always was. The Democratic leaders want to get the tiresome election over and look forward to another Clinton White House.
But even they realize now that Trump could well defeat Hillary. It could very well not be the hoped-for business as usual up on Capitol Hill.
The loudmouthed Trump has defied the pollsters and made the liberal media look foolish and in denial. Whatever the view of the man and his politics, this achievement has been remarkable. Defying Republican party leaders, he has seized a solid core of the party’s vote. But for him to win the Oval Office will require registered Democrats to defy their party as well.
Surely few of Sanders’ disappointed supporters could bring themselves to vote for Trump. But given the unappealing option of the slippery Hillary, it would seem very likely that they will not vote at all.
