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Mid-August political notes: This race is probably over, now what?

[additional-authors]
August 16, 2016

1.

In a comprehensive article for Slate, Yascha Mounk connects many dots and reaches a troubling conclusion: “Liberal democracy is decomposing into its constitutive parts: Over the next decades, much of the world will face a tragic choice between illiberal democracy, or democracy without rights, and undemocratic liberalism, or rights without democracy.”

His article is long, but the gist of it is this: the people all over the world (Turkey, Britain, US) don’t seem to be able to govern themselves wisely. So either the world caves in to populism and becomes much less liberal, or the elites take over to keep liberalism intact while ignoring the masses, namely reducing the level of democracy.

Mounk makes some good points, but not all the points he makes are good. He seems to think that Donald Trump is a more serious problem than terrorism. But is he really?

2.

There’s nothing the media hates more than to admit that a political race is over before it even began. It is bad for ratings. It is bad for business. It makes our professional lives less interesting. It forces us to look elsewhere for stories – and that’s tough. And yet, the Trump-Clinton race seems to be over before it even began. Americans seem to have been convinced – the candidate himself convinced them – that Trump is not fit to be President.

In the coming weeks, you will see more GOP heavyweights announcing their decision to climb off the Trump train wreck. In the coming weeks, the main worry of the Clinton campaign will become: how do we keep the voters interested in coming to the polls. In fact, Clinton is the one who needs Trump to seem at least a little threatening, so less voters decide to skip the voting booths.

3.

Can he still win? Of course he can. As we all know, in politics everything is possible. Yet it is worth remembering that even in politics the extraordinary is rarer than the ordinary. Those who have a commanding lead in the polls usually win (in Truman vs. Dewey the surprise came because of the faulty methodology of surveys, not because of a dramatic last minute change in voters’ minds). Those who seem unfit to rule usually lose. The primary process is problematic and can provide for a quirky result – a McGovern, a Goldwater, a Trump. The general election is less problematic and in most cases ends reasonably. Not always with a President to your liking, but with a President whose positions and views are within reason. In fact, many Americans should be thanking Trump for making so many past potential and actual presidents seem so much more reasonable than they seemed to be at the time.

4.

The fact that the voters consider Trump unfit does not make Hillary Clinton any better as a candidate. But the current political circumstances provide Clinton with a rare opportunity: in an era of polarization she has an opportunity to tilt the US back toward the center, and the growing grumble of the left proves that some people already get it.

Clinton, as a first term president who’d surely like to get a second term, is going to have to be careful as she governs from the center. She cannot afford losing her own party in the process. But she can at least try, and if the public likes what it sees her party might have to play along.

5.

If Trump loses it does not make Clinton a better candidate. If Trump loses it also does not mean that he was wrong on all things. In a year of anger and a craving for change, Trump could have been the next president had he been ten or twenty percent less Trumpish. In other words: some of his instincts aptly reflect how Americans feel – about the world, about immigration, about the economy – even if he, as a candidate, seems like an overstatement.

6.

The next four years in US-Israel relations depend on three things:

A. How Clinton prioritizes Israel related issues

B. Whether Clinton considers it politically beneficial for her to battle with Netanyahu

C. Most importantly: what happens on the ground in the Middle East 

On point A my prediction would be “relatively low.” On point B it would be “somewhat beneficial,” but she would not want to let it become a distraction. On point C all bets are off – but Syria is key. Clinton will have to decide early on if there’s still something she wants to do in Syria that makes sense. It might be too late, though. In fact, she might want it to be too late and save herself the headache. 

7.

Have you noticed that, relatively speaking, there is very little talk about the Jewish vote this year? Four years ago, I considered this matter interesting enough to write a short book about it just prior to Election Day. It began with these paragraphs (I cut them much shorter here):

2008 was a no-brainer.

Yes, for a couple of months there was noise, there was a shadow, there was doubt… In retrospect though, it is clear that Barack Obama vs. John McCain was a no-brainer…. All Obama had to do was pass a couple of simple tests to get his fair share of the Jewish vote…

2004 was a no-brainer.

It was hardly as exciting as the 2008 campaign, and hardly as historic… there was not a chance that Bush would get a share of the Jewish vote much higher than what Republicans had gotten used to from Jewish voters since the early Nineties.

2000 was a no-brainer.

With Joe Lieberman, the first Jewish candidate of a major party for the vice presidency?…

Will 2012 be any different? Can it be any different?

As you know, 2012 was somewhat but not much different. And you are welcome to write the paragraph for 2016. It should not be difficult.

8.

Also note that the candidates are not coming to Israel this summer.

Mitt Romney was in Israel in the summer of 2012. Obama was in Israel in the summer of 2008. But this year the candidates are not coming to Israel. They are not coming for several reasons:

A. There is no real contest for the Jewish vote.

B. Clinton does not need to bolster her image as a stateswoman and Trump has more urgent issues to deal with.

C. Israel’s value as a political asset is somewhat in decline.

Of course, point C is the only one about which Israelis and their supporters have to fret. But in this election cycle reaching such a conclusion is almost inevitable. The Democratic Party has a growing section of Israel-unfriendly leaders and activists. The GOP elected a candidate whose interest in engaging the world is minimal. The comforting news for Israel: Clinton, the next President, is neither this nor that.

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