The contest is already between ‘Crooked Hillary’ and ‘The Fraud’ yet peak ugliness is a way off
In ancient Rome gladiators slaughtered barbarians to keep the people entertained. In this case however, the barbarian has a shot at becoming emperor. Whether or not he succeeds, US democracy will never be the same.
What happens in the debates will offer Mr Trump’s best chance of gaining the prize. By any normal measure, Mrs Clinton’s campaign is light years ahead of her rival. Her fundraising machine is running at full pelt, raising close to $300m so far — nearly five times Mr Trump’s total. Her voter registration operation is pounding the streets in the key swing states. Mr Trump does not yet have a ground game worth the name. Mrs Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters is the size of a small corporation with hundreds of full-time staff. Mr Trump’s Manhattan operation consists of a small circle of loyalists with scant electoral experience among them.
In their view Mr Trump is David to Mrs Clinton’s Goliath. Instead of a sling he holds a Twitter account. His main weapon is an ability to suss out his opponent’s rawest nerves and mercilessly exploit them. Some commentators have dismissed Mr Trump as a schoolyard bully who hurls insults to get his way.
This is an apt summary of his moral character. It is also a dangerously complacent underestimate of his skills. Everything we have learnt from the 2016 campaign is that voters value facts, logic and consistency much less than we may have supposed. Mr Trump’s campaign is built on that insight. Civility is overrated. Insults work.
Could they carry him all the way to the White House? The standard rule of US presidential campaigns says that the candidates themselves should avoid attacking their opponent’s character — such dirty work is best left to surrogates.
Mr Trump has upended that logic. Barely a day passes when he does not describe Mrs Clinton in language that has no precedent in modern US politics. One moment Mrs Clinton is an enabler to a rapist husband, the next she is a crook who deserves to be in jail. Her family bribed and killed its way to office in the 1990s. If she cannot satisfy her husband, how can she satisfy America?
Mrs Clinton is gingerly following suit. Last week she called Mr Trump a fraud whose campaign consisted of a “series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies”. He was trying to scam American voters in the same way Trump University had ripped off thousands of gullible customers.
Mrs Clinton has reams of evidence to back her claims. Yet she has crossed a line she cannot uncross. If you get into a street fight with a thug, be sure to have every weapon to hand. If you use your fists, he will put on his knuckle duster. If you land a blow, he will pull out a knife. Mrs Clinton is playing on Mr Trump’s territory. He will always come back with something worse.Mr Trump has barely scratched the surface of Mrs Clinton’s potential conflict of interest with Bill Clinton’s global foundation
There are still five months to go before polling day yet the 2016 race is already a contest between “Crooked Hillary” and “Trump the Fraud”. Peak ugliness is still some way off. Can Mrs Clinton handle the inevitable escalation? Can democracy survive such nastiness unscathed
The answer to the first is disturbingly ambivalent. Mr Trump has barely scratched the surface of Mrs Clinton’s potential conflict of interest with Bill Clinton’s global foundation, an outfit that takes millions of dollars from foreign governments and business figures that has no precedent in US politics.
Friends of Mrs Clinton have urged her to say she would close down the foundation if she is elected president. She is clearly reluctant to do so. The longer she delays what would be a wise and necessary pledge, the more Mr Trump will bolster his “crooked Hillary” moniker.
Second, at some point in the coming weeks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will recommend whether to indict Mrs Clinton and her underlings for having used a private server for official communications.
If the FBI merely slaps Mrs Clinton on the wrist it would still offer material for Mr Trump to allege a cover-up. If President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice buries an FBI recommendation to indict, someone will leak it. The resulting scandal could quickly engulf the campaign.
Mrs Clinton is a weak candidate with serious vulnerabilities. Having searched vainly for a positive theme, she has settled on a negative one. Mr Trump is too dangerous to be president. She is right about that. Yet she has also chosen to fight on his terms.Conventional measures say Mrs Clinton should win by a landslide yet my gut says things may not be that simple
All the conventional measures say Mrs Clinton ought to win by a landslide. Yet my gut says things may not be that simple. Moreover, her victory could quickly look hollow. It will be hard to govern a country so bitterly divided by personal hatred.
When Mrs Clinton refers to her husband’s 1990s presidency, she often asks: “Which part of peace and prosperity didn’t you like?” Mr Trump’s answer is clear: You, your husband and quite possibly your daughter too. It is in anticipation of this that record audiences will be tuning in.
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