A Key to Understanding the Recent US Election

To the Clinton voters, it was all about race. To the Trump voters, it was all about class.

Between a Donkey and a Hard Place

Had the Republicans nominated John Kasich instead of Donald Trump, he would almost surely be crushing Hillary Clinton now. Had the Democrats nominated Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton, he would be crushing Donald Trump. So much for the will of the people. The American nominating process is disturbingly random.

A lot depends, for example, on which states hold the earliest primaries. What plays in Iowa or New Hampshire might not play at all well in New York or Texas, but if you do not pull well in Iowa or New Hampshire, you will never find out. That's why Rudi Giuliani did not become president.

Rather than whole states, it might be better to hold small early primaries in county-sized demographics around the country, selected as representative the way pollsters might select their samples. Something urban. Something rural, something Southern, something from the Northeast, and so on. And a different selection each cycle. Would this make starting a campaign cost more? Not if we used only a few such jurisdictions. If they end up being far apart, so are Iowa and New Hampshire.

Odds now are that Hillary Clinton will hold on and get the presidency. The RCP average shows her up a thin 1.8 percent. As she has just been cleared again by the FBI, this is unlikely to go down over the next few days.

This is probably the best result for the Republican Party. If Trump wins, the Republicans will be more or less saddled with him, an unsatisfactory candidate, in 2020. A lot of better candidates will be blocked. His administration is not likely to be a grand success, as he has few friends in congress. The Democrats are unlikely to put out again a candidate as unappealing as Clinton. If, on the other hand, Trump loses, it clears the way for a better candidate in four years, to run against a scandal-plagued Hillary Clinton or against Tim Kaine, never elected and saddled with the Clinton scandals.

Coming Up Trump

It is a painful thing to have to choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, two unsatisfactory candidates. But that does not mean it is a hard choice.

Strictly speaking, of course, there is another choice or two: there is the Green Party, and there is Gary Johnson. The Libertarian ticket is actually extremely impressive this time around. Nevertheless, unless they climb a lot more in the polls, voting Libertarian looks only like throwing your vote away—the moral equivalent of staying home.

The first requirement in a leader, the sine qua non, is honesty. Lose that in the top tier of government, and welcome to the Third World. Only then comes competence. And only then comes any particular stance on issues. Issues change, and are mostly unpredictable. Most leaders mostly only follow polls and make their political calculations anyway. And presidents are not properly responsible for that; it is the legislature, if anyone remembers.

On honesty, there is no hard choice. Hillary Clinton is the most openly dishonest major candidate at least since Richard Nixon, whom she eerily resembles. Like Nixon, she seems to lie as a matter of general principle, whether or not it is in her own immediate self interest.

This is the mark of a truly mendacious soul. When you have signed on with the Devil’s party, you come to see that general inky darkness is your best protection. As if by instinct you begin to shun the light. You are a person of the lie. Truth, even harmless truth, is the enemy.

If we elect such a person, the consequence is that warned of by Confucius as the greatest danger to good public order: words begin to lose their proper meaning. Nobody any longer says what they think. Terrorism is no longer terrorism. Male no longer means male, nor female female. Right is wrong, and wrong is right.

Okay, granted, this has already largely happened in America. This is what we call “political correctness.” The American elite, its political and social leadership, has already turned down this dark path. And they have done so, I submit, ultimately over the issue of abortion.

But Hillary Clinton would take it all to the next, and deepest level. That is a pit America might well never manage to climb out of.

Now, some will of course respond that Trump is objectively at least as awful a liar as Hillary. Trump steaks? Trump university? He lies often, and obviously. What have we been thinking here?

Sure, Trump lies often. Quite likely as often as Hillary, or more often. But there is a crucial difference here. Clinton lies to deceive. Trump lies as entertainment. Are the tales of Paul Bunyan, or Pecos Bill, lies? Are the tricks of a stage magician lies? Did Shakespeare lie in telling us there was a minor gentleman in Henry IV’s time named Falstaff?

That is the level at which Trump plays; the same level as, in his day, PT Barnum. Call them lies if you like; you are only making yourself the butt of the joke, by thus admitting you believed them.

At a deeper level, the true unshakable source of much of Trump's popular support is precisely his truth telling. In an atmosphere of growing public dishonesty, he is prepared to call a spade a spade. Even, clearly, in situations when this is not, by all conventional wisdom, in his own best interests.

The popular instinct here is a good one.

At this point, all else is already irrelevant. But some might well come back, now, with the point that Clinton is clearly more qualified. Indeed, some say she is one of the best-qualified candidates ever. By comparison, Trump has never even run for public office.

It is true that Clinton has put in the time. But what has she ever done? Yes, she served as Secretary of State. But during her time there, we had Benghazi, the email scandal, and a rapid decline in America’s influence everywhere. Not a reassuring record. Yes, she got herself elected to the senate; but largely, I think, on name recognition. Her great life accomplishment seems to have been marrying well.

So, we have a choice between an unknown quantity, and someone we know is not up to the job. Seems to me that choice is easy, too.

But it is also worth noting that Trump has at least demonstrated the most important skill; and Clinton has demonstrated that she does not have it. The chief value of a president, and his chief job, is as a communicator. The presidency has or ought to have little power to set policy. The president is there mostly to inspire, unify, set the tone, use what is sometimes called "the bully pulpit." Communications skill is what made Reagan successful; it is what made FDR successful; it is what Lincoln had; it is what John Kennedy had.

It is what Hillary obviously hasn’t.

And Trump has done nothing so clearly in the primaries as to demonstrate that he has supernatural, superhuman skill as a salesman, which is to say, a communicator.

Accordingly, there actually seems to be a chance that Trump will be a good president.

Finally, on policy, Trump and only Trump is on the right side of the one most important issue. Abortion. As I say, unrestricted abortion is what has poisoned the well of American public life. The consequences never end. Even if one does not particularly care about publicly sanctioned mass murder, you have to end this before you can do much good anywhere. It is very much like the issue of slavery in the nineteenth century.

I’m with Ted Cruz on this one. The moral path is clear.

Trump Surprises Me Again

Once again, as always, I was wrong about Trump. Apparently, the offer to debate Sanders came originally from someone else, perhaps even Sanders. And Trump has turned it down!

I can see only one possible reason why; only one possible downside to debating, from Trump's perspective. Trump must be afraid that Sanders might actually win the Democratic nomination, and that this would help him do it. And, if he is the candidate, unnecessarily boost his credibility in advance of the formal campaign.

I can understand Trump wanting to run against Clinton, not Sanders. Conventional wisdom holds that Sanders would be a weaker candidate, but I think that is wrong. To begin with, the polls do not show it. They show Sanders doing better than Clinton against Trump, or anyone else. In the end, people do not vote on policy or ideology. They vote for the guy they feel good about. Sanders is lots more likeable than Clinton.

And, quite likely, more likeable than Trump.

Against Sanders, too, Trump would lose his trump card, so to speak—voting for him being a thumb in the eye for the establishment. Hard to paint Sanders as an establishment candidate; next to him, Trump himself might look like the establishment. But dead easy to so portray Clinton.

Conventional wisdom also believes Sanders has a snowball's chance in a Bermuda summer of overtaking Clinton at this point. But Trump and his advisers may know or notice something we don't. The Clinton email scandal may be about to re-erupt. A damning report has just come down. The best result for Trump might well be a Clinton nomination immediately followed by criminal indictment, or at least some terrible press. Why help the Democrarts pull out of a nose dive?

While I'm here, let me also express my hope that Trump chooses Newt Gingrich as his vice-presidential candidate. Gingrich has what Trump needs to balance the ticket: most importantly, legislative experience; Southern exposure; conservative credibility. Gingrich is first-class with the media, and, like Trump, never intimidated by the press. And Gingrich is always fun to listen to.

The Trump-Sanders Debate

PT Barnum with his VP pick, Commodore Nutt

Donald Trump's offfer to debate Bernie Sanders for charity is a typical bit of PR genius.

First of all, Sanders would be crazy to turn it down. It gives him some free publicity Hillary Clinton will not get, on the eve of the crucial California primary. It also lets Sanders fix the image in Democrat voters' minds of himself as the nominee. And it puts in voters' minds the image of Sanders as the natural opponent of Donald Trump, aka the Devil Incarnate to many Democrats. Given all these considerations, the event is pretty likely to happen.

Even if it doesn't, Trump wins. The offer itself is a news story keeping him in focus instead of just the Dems. Because it is for charity, and specifically an unspecified women's charity, Trump can then say that Democrats do not really care about women, while he does. And, of course, he can claim that Sanders is scared of him.

But the true art of the deal is to come up with a win/win proposition. That is what this is. Sanders should thank Trump for the opportunity.

For Trump, it gives him a big jolt of free publicity. Especially if the offer is accepted, it injects him into the news cycle just as, otherwise, everyone would be focusing only on the Democratic race. In particular, it takes the spotlight off Hillary, his most likely opponent, diminishing her. Boosting Sanders also makes eventual unity harder for the Democrats. The closer Sanders comes to being the Democratic pennant-bearer, the stronger will the temptations be to launch a third-party bid, vitrually handing the presidency to Trump.

Trump platform.

It all works best if, as is far more likely, Hillary still ends up being the Democratic nominee. But if Sanders comes close enough that she wins only on the strength of the automatic delegates representing the party establishment, it makes Trump look that much more like the candidate of the common man. But even if it overshoots and hands Sanders the nomination, or something does, it is still not a bad thing for Trump. At worst, the Democratic nominee is getting no more exposure than he is. Some might also argue that Sanders would be easier to run against; I'm not at all sure about that. His policies might be less popular than Hillary's, but people are more inclined to vote on personalities.

It shows once again Trump's PR talents. He is, if nothing else, a great salesman. And the American people love that sort of showmanship. It is in the fine tradition of P.T. Barnum and W.C. Fields, the Yankeee pedlar and the emcee of the Old West medicine show. Sure, Barnum was a liar and a cheat, and the patent medicine probably did not work, but the lie and the cheat were so entertaining, they were more than worth the price of admission. It is popular entertainment in the fine, culturally democratic, American tradition.

Coming Up Trump

Followers of this blog will have noticed, and probably understand why, I feel silent on the current US presiential race about the time it became a lead pipe cinch that Donald Trump was going to be the Republican nominee.

Trump was not my first choice. Nor second, nor third, nor fifth, nor seventh.

Nvertheless, I can see no good in the current drive to launch a third party campaign. Republican voters have already had a wide range of candidates to choose from. It was the best crop of candidates in my lifetime. Nevertheless, they chose Trump. There is just not another figure out there in the wings who is going to do better against him than they did.

Ergo, all the candidacy would do, if it did anything, is to throw the election to Clinton and the Democrats. If that's what you want to accomplish, why not just vote for her and have done with it?

The choice, like it or not, is between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Now, let's assume they are equally bad. If so, my vote still goes to Trump. If you are stuck with rascals, there is still something to be sai for throwing the current rascals out, and replacing them with a new batch of rascals. It takes time for any new batch of rascals to get familiar with the levers of power; and rascality in two different directions can sometimes cancel out.

But we cannot know that they are equally bad. Clinton has a track record. We know she would be awful. Trump has no track record. We cannot know the same of him. Given the choice between a leap in the dark and leap to certain death, make mine darkness.

And we can all do the math. Unless he is prepared to stage some kind of coup, Trump, like any president, will be very much constrained by Congress. In his case, whether that is a Democratic congress or a Republican congress, there will be huge areas of disagreement. This might, almost regardless of the actual disagreements, be a more desirable situation than the norm. Even here, the rascals will be using much energy fighting each other, instead of working together in silence to pick constituent pockets bare. At least we'll have a better chance of seeing and hearing what is going on.

The suspicion among the public for some time has been that the guys in Washington are chummier with one another, regardless of party, than they are with the electorate. The situation is similar to that in Canada during and after the Charlottetown Accord.

A logrolling elite divided against itself cannot stand.

The State of the Union

Nelson Rockefeller speaks (and is booed), Republican convention, 1964

We have been told that a contested Republican convention is quite unlikely, but in fact, it is looking like the most probable result of the primary season. Trump so far has won about 40% of the delegates. To win on the first ballot in Cleveland, he needs to win about 60% of the remaining delegates. This is obviously unlikely. Even if Trump has not started to decline—analysis suggests Cruz's unexpectedly strong showings recently have more to do with a collapse in Rubio's support, while Trump's has held fairly steady—something new would presumably be needed to boost him this much. In the meantime, the Republican “establishment” and its big donors are gathering to stop Trump. If Rubio wins Florida, and Kasich wins Ohio, Trump realistically cannot get the delegates to win. The fact that both Rubio and Kasich are still in the race is strong evidence they and their teams think the convention will be contested—they cannot now win outright, but arriving at the convention with a healthy block of delegates gives them bargaining power.

Democratic convention, 1968

Cruz has said there would be a general voter revolt if there were a contested convention. I doubt it. Conventions in the US used always to be contested, they still are in the UK or Canada, and the excitement of it, to my mind, is far preferable to the current boring pantomime performance. Of course, you do not want strife like there was at the Cow Palace in 1964, or Chicago in 1968. But most contested conventions are still fairly mannerly affairs. They always are, in Canada. The worst was perhaps the Tory convention in 1967, but even then, when Diefenbaker put his name in contention at the last moment, after a speech in which he scolded the entire party, another candidate (I think it was Donald Fleming) lent Dief his marching band for the latter's grand entrance.

PC convention 1967

On the Democratic side, things also seem pretty dramatic. A lot of people are saying Clinton has it all sewn up, because of the huge number or Democratic “superdelegates.” who automatically get to go to the convention without being elected. This includes all elected Democratic politicians at the federal level, plus all members of the Democratic National Committee. Together, they constitute almost one quarter of the delegates. They are reputedly heavily committed to Clinton. The strong evidence of this is how the DNC has bent the rules so far to favour Clinton's candidacy in any way they could.

This is, in sum, the “party establishment” against which the Republicans are in open revolt. As it turns out, the establishment is far more powerful in the other party. Yet Democrats seem more sanguine about it, for now.

However, a piece in the Huffington Post contests this notion. Its argument, in brief: 1) these are politicians. 2) If Sanders wins the primaries, they would be seen going against their constituents' wishes. 3) polls in any case show Sanders running stronger than Clinton against Republican opponents. 4) these guys want to keep their jobs, and do not have a suicide wish.

The article goes on to say that Sanders has a very good chance of outperforming Clinton in the remaining primaries. Clinton has so far racked up big wins in the Southern states, and so far has done little better than Sanders. Almost all of the Southern states have now voted. From here on in, it should be better Sanders territory.

In sum, this could be the most interesting political season in the US for at least the past forty years

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Trump's Fade: Super Saturday

Super Saturday is further proof that Trump has reached and passed his high water mark. He underperformed the recent polls by quite a bit. Folks are saying Rubio did remarkably badly and probably should drop out. I'm not so sure. Trump says he wants hum to drop out. That is a good clue that he should not. He is naturally the biggest challenge to Trump in his home state of Florida. But there are also a bunch of big northern states coming up that are winner-take-all. These do not look like good prospects for Cruz. They might be more fertile ground for Rubio. Without Rubio in, they are likely to go to Trump.

It seems to me that Rubio's strong attacks on Trump badly hurt Trump, but also hurt Rubio. Cruz was the beneficiary. He split the four states ith Trump 50/50, but he barely lost Louisiana and Kentucky, while he crushed Trump in Kansas and won handily in Maine, a state that did not look like Cruz country. And these states award their delegates proportionately.

In any case, I think it's all downhill from here for Trump.

Eleventh Republican Debate

The latest Republican debate was as exciting as the last one. This time it was Cruz's chance to shine. Rubio still got off the bet line of the night, worrying about Trump breaking into yoga because he was so flexible. It was also extempore, not a pre-planned sound bite. Rubio is obviously a bright guy with a really good sense of humour. He was not nearly as aggressive as last time—no doubt his own polls tell him it is not helping him for all it may hurt Trump. This gave Cruz the chance to take centre stage. He adopted a prosecutorial manner, which may work better for him.

Kasich also did well. He reversed his disturbing answer on religious freedom from last debate. Someone must have sat him down and pointed out what was really at stake. Still, that he seems to have been ill-informed on the issue suggests that he is not the serious Christian he says he is.

I cannot imagine how anyone continues to support Trump. He was awful. His insults, his avoidance of positions and his waffling were too obvious, and to clearly pointed to by the other candidates and the moderators. He was playing the voters for suckers, and surely the voters in general should see this by now. I think it may still take time, maybe two weeks, for it all to sink in, but I suspect this dragon is finally slain.

Super Tuesday

Cruzing to victory in Texas and Oklahome

Donald Trump won a lot of primaries, but what stands out to me is that he underperformed the latest polls. It may be that people are finally seeing through the Trump phenomenon, and we may have seen his high water mark. The second story is that Cruz seems to be benefiting more than Rubio. It was always going to be Cruz's night rather than Rubio's, but there was no great Rubio surge. Rubio is the guy who went after Trump, most recently and most impressively, but unless you are Trump and the rules do not apply, going negative tends to blow up both candidates, aggressor and victim. People may buy it, but they do not want to reward anyone they perceive as nasty.

The good news is that Trump's numbers were low enough to make him look quite beatable by a united opposition. His vote was consistently in the thirties percentagewise, with Rubio and Cruz in the twenties. The bad news is that the results made that united opposition look less likely. Cruz edged up to challenge Rubio more definitively for second place. Which one would drop out?

Bernie? Is that your street name?

On the Democratic side, the most marked result is that the Democratic party is split, on racial lines. Blacks are overwhelmingly backing Clinton, by 70 to 90 percent. Whites are backing Sanders. It makes no sense on the face of it, since Sanders has since his youth been a prominent fighter for civil rights, while Clinton comes late to that game, and only when it was in her own interests. This demands an explanation, and nobody has breathed one that might come to the forefront immediately if the racial roles were different. It may have a lot to do with Sanders being Jewish. It may be an endemic black anti-Semitism,

Jews tend to see blacks as fellow sufferers, as like them in being discriminated against. But really, the cases are opposite. Blacks are generally considered inferior. Jews are generally considered superior, and discriminated against out of envy. They are, as a group, significantly wealthier and better educated than the norm for almost any society they are a part of, including the US. For blacks, extra spaces need to be given to them at universities to boost their numbers to their share of the general population. For Jews, quotas have always been the problem, spaces denied them to reduce their numbers to their share of the general population. This sort of thing being so, blacks and Jews really have opposite interests. And, if the average white guy tends to resent the success of the Jews, the average black guy is liable to resent it that much more so.

Republican and Democratc Debates

It certainly is more fun watching the Republican than the Democratic debates. Lots of fireworks. Last night's CBS South Carolina debate was like WWE.

The president properly has very little real power. All he can really do is persuade. This, in any case, is the essential talent for any effective leader. The most important qualification for the job, therefore, is to be a good communicator. Without this, one may get the office, but one changes nothing. You just follow polls; anyone could do the same. Being a great communicator was the secret of a Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, FDR, Thatcher.

The last few outings, the Republicans have been I'll - served in this regard. It is not so much that Romney spoke conservatism only as a second language, as that he was a manager, not a communicator. His instinct was to seek board consensus and go from there. This is why I preferred Gingrich. He could make the case for change.

This time out, Rubio seems the most talented communicator. When he made the case not long ago for religion in public life, I wanted to stand up and cheer. When, last night, he defended George Bush and the invasion of Iraq, he was the only candidate who said what needed to be said. Whether or not Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and whether or not Bush knew, was not terribly relevant. This was not the legal basis for the war. It was that Saddam was violating the ceasefire.

Rubio takes a lot of heat for co-sponsoring the "gang of eight" immigration bill. Bush and Kasich also get flak for being too soft on illegal immigration. By contrast, Trump rocketed to the top of the polls on this issue, by calling Mexican migrants rapists and murderers and promising to build a border wall.

Truth is, I agree with Rubio, Bush, and Kasich. First, as the establishment knows, the Republican party does not have a bright future if it alienates the Hispanic demographic. Second, while it might appeal to the working class at first glance that competing with cheaper Mexican labour is undesirable, keeping illegal migrants out cannot solve the problem. It is easy enough just to move your plant to Mexico. In fact, in order to compete and keep revenues, incomes, and the economy up the best thing to do is probably to throw the doors wide open. Third, basic principle: the average person produces a lot more wealth than they consume: people are the most valuable resource.

Rubio did very well this time, and probably erased the memory of his disastrous performance last debate. His problem is that Bush and Kasich also had very good night's. I like both Bush and Kasich; both are very strong candidates. But if the non-Trump, non-Trump vote does not consolidate behind one option soon, the race will be bet between these two.

I really do not like Trump. In essence, his case and his appeal is proto-Fascist. He reminds me distinctly of Benito Mussolini. His selling proposition is simply that he is much smarter than anyone who is doing politics now. This is obviously unlikely. It is also the good old Fascist leadership principle: the leader is a great genius, and everything is left to him.

The hair is different, but the chin is the same/

Neither do I like Cruz. He has now been accused by Carson, Trump, and Rubio of multiple dirty tricks in the three contests we have seen so far. Where there is smoke, there is probably fire, and it troubles me that his congressional colleagues to a man and woman seem not to like him. The most fundamental requirement in a leader, more basic than being a good communicator, more basic even than mere competence, is honesty. The problems of the Third World are easily explained: a corrupt ruling class.

Much less interesting to watch was the recent Wisconsin Democratic debate. Clinton was distinctly more subdued and less aggressive this time than last. My guess is that her own internal polling confirms our impression that this tone hurts her and helps Sanders. As a results no fireworks; and no gaffes. Unfortunately, when she is not on the attack, Clinton is terribly boring to listen to. The problem is that she is so transparently calculated in everything that you already know what she is going to say before she says it. Hillary reminds me uncannily of Richard Nixon. Like Nixon, she seems prepared to say anything, if it is to her advantage, and you get the feeling she thinks she is clever to do it. Not a moral being.

Sanders' ideas may be crazy, but his sincerity contrasts well with this. I don't care about his politics so much as I like him more personally. I think for most people that's more important. For me, it is more important.

A note: the problem came up in the Democratic debate that blacks are disproportionately represented in the prison population. This is in itself apparently proof of discrimination. "Clearly," says Sanders, "we are dealing with institutional racism." Not mentioned is the plain fact that males are even more disproportionately represented. If the one fact proves discrimination, so does the other.

Poor Oppressed Hillary

Haplesss victim of circumstances beyond her control.

In a recent debate, Bernie Sanders said Hillary Clinton represented the establishment. Clinton immediately took strong exception to this. "Sen. Sanders is the only person who I think would characterize me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment." Adding irony, her husband, the former president, Bill Clinton, later insisted at a campaign stop that his wife was not a part of the establishment.

She is a former First Lady of th US, leaving aside an education at Wellesley and Yal and a career as US Senator and Secretary of State. If she is not a member of the establishment, who is? A woman cannot by definition be in the establishment? Queen Elizabeth is not? Queen Victoria was not? Lady Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, cannot be and is just putting on airs?

Yet there is every chance she believes it. This is the same millionaire who exposed herself to public ridicule by once saying she and her husband were dead broke when they left the White House.

The modern left, at least tits leadership, is largely composed of wealthy and powerful people who believe someone else is in charge. By income, Republicans and Democrats are almost evenly matched; in bluesttes, generally the richer ones, the wealthy tend to be to the left, in red states they tend to be on the right--along with everybody else. By postgradte edoucation, Democrats predominate, In other words,the Democrats are the party of the professional elite. Generally fat capitalists are blamed for being in control of everything.There are actually few left, or many, if you count all retired people., A capitalists is prorerly someone who lives entirely by the fruit of fhis capital investoments This is a social class which has essentially disappeared since Marx created it over 150 years ago. Large coroprations are instead usually publicly held, which is to say, controlled by professional fund managers and professional managers, both of whom lean Democratic. Yet Bernie sanders sgainst the billionaire class who controls our politics. He does not note that there are in total less than a thousand of them, that most of them are politically to the left, or that, if they really controlled politics, he could not have won the New Hampshire primary.

It is a conspiracy theory, it deals in phantoms, but it is easy to believe this. It is, after all, uncanny how there does seem to be a malicious intelligence controlling the world's affairs. It i not just that the world is full of lies, but that the lies seem remarkably calculated and generally the very opposite of the truth, Hence the constant stream of conspiracy theories, involving not just rich capitalists, but the Koch brothers, the Jews, the Illuminati, the international Catholic Conspiracy, the gnomes of Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission, the Masons, and so forth.

The key to the strength of the modern left is that. the more one is oneself a member of the establishment, more the case with Democrats than Republicans at the leadership level, the easier it is to believe in such conspiracy theories, especially the wilder ones. After all, one is acutely aware, despite one's own high position, of affairs distinctly following what seems to be a malicious pattern beyond your control. How else explain this? Someone must be doing this, and someone who is somehow keeping themselves hidden, for you are nominally in charge and should at least know who they are, should catch them doing it. Case in point: Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Minister of Defense, who is now convinced that the governments of the world are concealing dealings with aliens. And planning an intergalactic war,

The real answer is simple. The devil is real. He is a coherent intelligence. He really is, as the New Testament says, the prince of this world. He has real power. Fail to understand this, and the least of your worries is that you get the basic nature of the social world completely wrong. This misunderstsng has also led to some of the worst crimes of history: Hitler's scapegoating of the Jews, the scapegoating of the well-off in Communist countries, and so forth.

The prince of this world.

New Hamphire Results

The New Hampshire primary could not have gone much better for Donald Trump. He won outright, of course, and won big, more than doubling the votes of his closest rival. More importantly, the primary let no figure to coalesce around for an anybody but Trump movement. Rubio, the great hope, obviously suffered greatly from his terrible debate performance. He needed and was poised or a strong second. Instead he slipped to fifth, and irrelevance. In second instead was John Chickasaw. A good candidate, but with no organization nor appeal in the Southern states about to go next. By the time Super Tuesday is over, hiss good showing here will probably be a distant memory.

Worse, the possible rivals to Trump are all bunched closely together in the results. So they may all stay in. Even if some drop out, there is no one clear destination for their votes. It looks like a two-person race is shaping up, Trump versus Cruz, and too many people do not like Cruz.

On top of that, Trump actually out-performed the last pre-primary polls, making him the winner in media terms as well. Other than the fade of Rubio, there is no bigger story,

Trump is now the odds-on favourite or the Republican nomination. Before the debate, I would have said Rubio. Sanders, of course, remains the best bet for the Democrats. Hillary's campaign will now perhaps melt down, There are rumours...

US Presidential Race

John Kasich

On the one hand, watching the US Presidential debates is getting more exciting because the gloves are coming off, as some candidates are fighting for their lives. On the other hand, a lot o candidates have said the same thing too many times now, with their canned answers.

I think Hillary made a major blunder in the latest Democratic debate in going after Sanders aggressively for citing her huge speech honouraria from Goldman Sachs. First, it plays to her weakness. There is no question that her speaking fees look bad to the average voter, who could probably hope to retire on what she made for three speeches. She has now drawn attention to it by making it the preferred sound bite from that debate. Second, being the first to go negative and going after Sanders, clearly her senior, gives him sympathy and cuts into her already meagre likability. Third, it makes her look desperate, as apparently she is, and hurts her air of inevitability. Fourth, since nobody believes Goldman Sachs gave her so much money without expecting something in return, her protests to the contrary just reinforce the impression that she is dishonest. Clinton's campaign is almost DOA at this point.

Until last night's Republican debate, I was ready to pronounce on the Republican contest as well. Cruz's win in Iowa took out Trump. but is likely to be Cruz's own high water mark. First, Iowa does not often pick the winner of the overall race; the caucuses produce an odd electorate, Second, Cruz made a major gaffe last debate in fighting with the moderators, reinforcing the concern that he could not get along. His campaigns apparent dirty tricks against Carson hurt him further in the same way. Everyone likes Carson, and he is not letting the issue go. Cruz is unlikely to pick up a lot of support as others drop out, if there is a decent alternative. That leaves Rubio as the big winner from Iowa, and the endorsements are indeed pouring in. Rick Santorum started the stampede. The night of the last debate, he looked as though he were positioning himself to back Trump. Now he's behind Rubio, In one week, Rubio has surpassed Bush as the candidate with the most endorsements, most recently as of this writing Bobby Jindal. The latest poll shows Rubio leapfrogging Cruz in N.H.

However, it appears that the three governors still in the race are not ready to give up. In last night's debate, they formed a tag team. The theme was that one of them should be selected for their executive experience, and they have a point. Christie destroyed Rubio in the most memorable exchange of the night. In light of this, and the latest poll numbers, I'd say John Kasich still has a shot.

I'm good with that. To my mind, the strongest Republican ticket is Kasich and Rubio in either order.

Iowa Caucuses

Republican nominee 2016?

The big loser in Iowa was Donald Trump. I frankly expect his campaign now to fade into irrelevancy.His only selling point was that he was a winner, and now he has lost. 

The big winner is Marco Rubio. The name of the game in Iowa is exceeding expectations. He has most exceeded expectations. On top of that, he has pulled away from the pack in good time to allow the establishment to coalesce arooud him. Expect lots of endorsements and new money to come now to his campaign.

On the Democratic side, Clinton could not win. As the prohibitive front-runner, there is no news value in her winning. So even though she won, even though late polls showed he might. win, the story becomes "Sanders nearly ties Clinton." 

Now to New Hampshire. I expect Trump's current lead in the polls to fade, I expect Rubio to leapfrog Cruz, so that the story even if he does not win the primary will again be Rubio. Other establishment candidates will probably drop out after N.H., and Rubio, who has the biggest growth potential, will probably take the nomination. Sanders should win the Democratic primary handily. Sanders and Rubio will meet in November.

Republican Debate

Losers: top loser should be Donald Trump, although until now he has been invulnerable to errors which should sink any candidate. Refusing to appear and debate over a feud with one of the (conservative) moderators makes him look self-important and immature. On the other hand , as front-runner, there is something to be said for avoiding the opportunity for all of the other candidates to pile on. But that seems cynical.

Ted Cruz should have lost ground by fighting with a moderator, Chris Wallace, seemingly confirming the misgivings about his personality and ability to get along with colleagues. This seemed to me a huge, historic gaffe. His jokes at Trump's expense fell flat, and seemed to at least this observer to be mean-spirited and cowardly, since Trump was not there to respond. Rubio and Fox (the moderators) also drew blood by making him look like a flip-flopper on immigration.

Rubio is the obvious beneficiary of a loss by both Trump and Cruz, but he too had his worst debate. He lost an exchange with Bush and also looked like a hypocrite on immigration. Squirmed and double-talked like a skilled politician. This is exactly what the people are fed up with.

Christie had the best moment,  in my mind,  when he called both Cruz and Rubio on double-talk. Underlining both his better credentials and outsider status. And a very good moment when he called for defunding Planned Parenthood. Also good was his reference to the Clintons living in "public housing."

Bush had a very strong performance and won an exchange with Rubio on immigration. Too bad for him it is too late. His name, his previous hackneyed performances, and his vicious attack ads killed his candidacy some time ago. His numbers have already jumpied in N.H. polling.

Rand Paul had his best debate. If positive references on Twitter are an accurate measure, he was winner of the debate. A lso too late. Same for Kasick. Kasick is a good candidate, but doomed. He will never be acceptable to the Party's right wing.

Ben Carson only showed up.

It is too late for Christie to be a factor in Iowa, but his debate performance may allow him to leapfrog the other candidates in New Hampshire.

On the Eve of the Iowa Caucuses

The Democratic race for presidential nominee is now a lead - pipe cinch. The Republican race is still wide open.

Odd, then, if it is true that Republican operatives are now reputedly stampeding to Trump. But who really is? Bob Dole? I like Bob Dole, but the big surprise was that he was still alive.

Here's why. Not why the publicans are stampeding; why they should not.

Iowa is a caucus, not a primary. Polls tell us little; it is usually a surprise. A premium is placed on enthusiasm. Neither Hillary ' s nor even Trump's supporters are the most enthusiastic. Both are likely to underperform the polls. Even though, Sanders' supporters being younger, getting them to caucus may be harder.

The media is about news. Their lead story will not be who won, but who outdid or fell short of expectations.

Both Iowa and New Hampshire are all about buzz. Few delegates are at stake.

Now, what makes a good story? Trump or Clinton wins is just dog bites man. Even if Clinton wins. Either way, Sanders wins Iowa--he is likely to win outright--and then New Hampshire, where he is next door to a native son. By this time, Clinton is badly wounded. Good chance the momentum carries Sanders to the nomination. If O'Malley surges, he takes votes away from Clinton, not Sanders. The inevitability is that Clinton will not be the nominee. I predicted a long time ago, when both were claimed as foreordained, that Clinton would not be the Dem nominee, and Chfhsgk

On the Republican side, Cruz beats Trump is a good story. Failing that, the media will probably focus on the third-place finisher, or surprise place or show, who thereby gets a big boost in New Hampshire. You can be sure that the N.H. polls will change quite a bit between now and polling day. Because N.H. allows crossover voting, it is bad territory for Cruz. It favours more moderate voices. Accordingly, unless Trump can still take it despite inevitable media reports of "failure" in Iowa, there is a real opportunity for "establishment" support to coalesce around a third candidate. And we don't yet know who.

Camelittle

 

JFK with his first cabinet.

It’s not just that the Republicans have more candidates running for president. Democratic presidential candidates seem to have thinner resumes. Bernie Sanders is a senator from a small blue state—the second smallest in the nation. Nor is Rhode Island all that big. Lincoln Chafee seemed to base his entire campaign on having once voted against the Iraq War. Then there’s Martin O’Malley, former mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland. Baltimore is now a very public basket case. Maryland is about the most reliably Democratic state in the nation. Even so, O’Malley’s two terms were so impressive locally that the state’s electors followed him with only their second Republican governor since the 1960s.

Baltimore on Homecoming Weekend.

Then there’s Mrs. Clinton. Hillary Clinton’s only obvious life accomplishment is to have married well. Thanks to name recognition and her husband’s connections, in the noble tradition of Lurleen Wallace and Isabel Peron, she has served her time in suitable office chairs behind big desks, in the Senate and at State. But while there, did she actually score any worthwhile accomplishments? It looks more like a record of failure. Given the brief to push through universal health coverage, she failed. In the senate, no important initiative or legislation bore her name. The most memorable thing she did was to vote for the Iraq War. At State, the reset with Russia, leading from behind in Libya, the Iraq pullout, the Mubarak sellout, the pivot to Asia, the red line in Syria, and whatever happened in Benghazi, all policy failures. It is hard to say how much was her boss’s fault, but there is nothing to inspire confidence. If it weren’t for the good work of Clare Danes, things would probably be far worse. 

Damascus on Homecoming Weekend.

The one guy in the race on the Democratic side who had any claim to distinction was Jim Webb. At least he was a war hero. And they mocked him for it.

On the Republican side, for comparison, let’s not use this year’s crop of candidates. Let’s assume the field this time is unusually good. Instead, let’s look at 2012, when the Republican field was, everyone said, weak. Even so, a weak Republican field included Rick Santorum, a two-term senator from a large, important, blue state, who had managed during his two terms to rise to number three in the Republican hierarchy. It included Rick Perry, the first man ever to have won three tenures as governor of Texas, the second-largest state, and who had a staggering record of job creation. It included Newt Gingrich, the acknowledged mastermind of the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, for the first time in forty years. We had Jon Huntsman, who had served in five different presidential administrations, negotiated the Doha round, left the governorship of Utah with an 80% approval rating, and spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese. And, of course, we had Mitt Romney. Two Harvard graduate degrees, incredibly wealthy as a corporate turnaround expert, savior of the Salt Lake City Olympics, and someone who managed to win the governorship of the bluest state in the union. Where he eliminated the deficit while introducing universal health care. 

Romney at the Salt Lake City Olympics.

Seriously, guys, the Democrats are in trouble. Nobody seems to be noticing—I keep hearing that demographics are moving entirely in their favour—but in reality, it looks as though they are living on fumes.

Partly, there are a lot more Republican politicians to choose from. Back in the sixties and seventies, when I was young, it was a given that, while Republicans might win now and then at the Presidential level, the Democrats were the majority party. They held the state legislatures. They held both houses of Congress. They held the solid South. They used to call them "yellow dog Democrats": they would vote for a yellow dog, so long as it ran as the Democrat. It all seemed baked in, inevitable.

The old Democratic solid South.

Since then, there has been a steady trend in the opposite direction. The Republicans now control the state houses. The control both houses of Congress. They hold the South. It may not look solid or inevitable, but that is the clear trend. Demographics be damned.

But there is, I think, a second factor: a comparison of the crop of candidates suggests that Democrats right up to the very top level are now, on the whole, unimaginative, intellectually unimpressive, and lacking in initiative. There are no more Daniel Patrick Moynihans or John Kenneth Galbraiths among them; the best and the brightest all gravitate to the other side of the aisle.

This is not the mark of a party of the future. These are the characteristics one expects for a conservative party whose raison d’etre was the defense of a dying privileged class. The last petty panjandrums of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the last Soviet commissars; the lace-throated tax farmers of the ancien regime.

And What Rough Beast?

Nebuchadnezzar gone mad: William Blake

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. When did we last see so much in so much dissaray? The US under Obama has now pretty clearly abdicated its longtime role as world leader. The EU seems to be coming unfastened. The world financial system is shuddering and rumours of imminent collapse are spreading. Even the Vatican, last bastion of Truth and Order, under Pope Francis seems to have lost its clarity.

In the US, things seem equally chaotic internally. The Democrats are suddenly struggling at almost the last minute to draft an acceptable candidate for president. The Republicans in congress, despite a majority in both houses, seem incapable of anything. Both the Supreme Court and the President seem to be acting in disregard of the legislature. Four years ago, few were publicly in favour of making gay marriage legal in the US. Now, it is illegal to object. Planned Parenthood has been revealed as a butchery, and yet there seems to be no general will to prosecute, or even to defund. Let's not get into Benghazi or the Iran deal; neither yet make any sense. We seem even to be past caring that they make no sense. We no longer expect sense or clarity.

There is a visible, tangible hollowness at the centre, just as Yeats perceived in 1919, when he wrote the lines that begin this post. Nobody and nothing seems to be in charge any more.

At such times, people naturally crave a man riding in on a white horse. All they care about, suddenly, is that he will be tough; that he will seem to be “in command.” Someone at last will take charge.

This, perhaps, better than anything else, explains Donald Trump. He is a symptom of system failure. Just as, in the chaos and libertinage following World War I, we got Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler.

Trump, in the event that he makes it to the presidency, may be much better than Mussolini. But he is a product of the same phenomenon, and that bodes ill. Already, he has predictably found a relatively helpless scapegoat against which to channel the general angst: illegal aliens. He will, he now says, round them all up and send them back home within two years.

Okay, this is a far remove from rounding up the Jews and sending them to gas chambers; but it is at least a disturbing echo.

The same phenomenon can probably be seen in the Bernie Sanders boom on the left. If Trump is Mussolini in miniature, Sanders is little Lenin.

From where I sit this morning, as a sandstorm blowns in from the Hijaz, killing a hundred pilgrims in Mecca, the future is not looking bright.

All Bets Are Off

Amazing news: the top three contenders in Iowa, according to the latest poll, are now Trump and Carson, tied, and Carly Fiorina. After them comes Ted Cruz.

I expected Trump’s support to fade. But I did not expect the beneficiary to be Ben Carson.

We have the most qualified Republican field in presidential history, and the Republican electorate is backing the four candidates with the thinnest credentials for the presidency. More or less in order—Carson probably has the least, then Trump, a businessman, then Fiorina, a businesswoman who has at least run for office, and then Cruz, in the senate for just two years.

This is the opposite of what I expected to happen this cycle. I thought that, after the apparent amateurishness of the Obama administration, the mood would be for someone with the greatest gravitas and government experience.

This has to be a full-scale rebellion against the political class. It is not Trump’s brashness or toughness they like: Carson is the opposite of that. They are looking for a Mr. Smith to go to Washington.

If so, the established, experienced candidates cannot make up much ground by fire-breathing or co-opting Trump’s stance on the issues. That’s not the point.

Here’s another kicker. Until now, the Republicans have always been the disciplined party, the ones who would always, in the end, line up behind the establishment choice. I have been assuming this would still be the case.

But according to this poll, in Iowa at least, Trump, Carson, and Fiorina between them have 53% of the vote. That’s an absolute majority, impervious to the establishment coalescing behind any other candidate.

So now, and if this mood holds, it is hard to fathom what is going to happen.

Here’s another wild card to throw into the mix. Everyone’s been talking about a possible Trump third-party candidacy, if he does not win the nomination.

But what about a Bernie Sanders third-party bid, if he does not win the Democratic nomination? On the face of it, that seems more plausible. After all, Sanders isn’t even a Democrat.

This looks like a watershed year.