Clinton Versus Trump
The
Script of a Real-Life Tragedy
Trump
versus Clinton will go down in American history as the dirtiest
campaign of all time. It seemed at times as though script writers had
let their imaginations run wild. But the consequences for democracy
in the United States will be long lasting. By SPIEGEL Staff
November
04, 2016
One
could imagine the pilot episode for this series beginning with a
fast-paced time-lapse from the Hudson to the Potomac, music rising
dramatically in the background. The flight would start over New York,
Manhattan bathed in morning mist, before shooting up Fifth Avenue,
banking over the 58-floor Trump Tower and heading out over the
countryside to the southwest. The route would take us over New
Jersey, past Philadelphia and then Baltimore, where the battle that
inspired the US national anthem was fought -- land of the free, home
of the brave. Finally, we would reach Washington D.C., the river, the
Watergate building, the proud Mall with its monuments, the dome of
the Capitol and then, the center of power, the White House.
It
would make for a dramatic beginning of the series with the working
title of "Dirty Duel" or "Sad!" or perhaps, more
prosaically, "The Next President." Or simply "Trump
versus Clinton." It would ultimately be a tragedy, but one with
so many twists and turns, sudden mood swings, absurd side stories and
crazy coincidences that it could pass as fiction. It would feel like
a television docudrama written by screenplay writers who let their
fantasies run wild.
On
Tuesday, the final episode of the series will be filmed -- when
American voters go to the polls to elect their country's 45th
president. Up until a week ago, the race had seemed over. The attempt
by New York real estate mogul Donald Trump to transform himself from
a political nobody into the most powerful man on the planet looked as
though it had failed. This Twitter-clown's dream of launching a
cultural revolution and installing his own unique interpretation of
American democracy was over. But then, it wasn't.
The
bewildering stories about incorrectly forwarded emails and/or emails
hacked by Russian agents returned. The head of the FBI suddenly
looked like a shady Trump stooge and this other guy from New York,
the one who has a penchant for sending obscene selfies to assorted
women, returned to the stage together with his beautiful ex-wife, who
by a quirk of fate just happens to be one of Hillary Clinton's top
advisors. In short, the final days of the campaign became so insane
that, as a Washington Post columnist wrote, one feels like the figure
in Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream." And one is
tempted to scream: Stop! Enough!
America Votes
One
Mistake Too Many
When
Americans go to the polls on Tuesday, there will be no chance left to
salvage this election. All that remains is picking the lesser of two
evils. But the damage has already been done.
© DER SPIEGEL An
Editorial by Klaus Brinkbäumer
November 07, 2016
11:06 PM
There used to be an
American sense of comfort in transformation, in change, in the
pendulum's eternal swing. It was an American certainty: Even if the
present is dreary and gray, there would still be the future, and the
future would be bright.
But there was more
than that -- this age-old American attitude that anyone can take
charge of their destiny at any time. If you don't like your job, you
just quit. If you don't like the East Coast, you move out west. You
thought George W. Bush was the worst president since 1945? No worries
-- there are term limits, after all, and a Barack Obama can always
come along.
Such was the
thinking of millions of people in the United States -- even among
political scientists and historians. It was perhaps a childish view
-- the idea that opportunity would always be there because lasting
failure and destruction was something that could only happen
elsewhere. A Germany that triggered and lost World War II is
incapable of that kind of thinking. But for an America that has long
been pleased with itself, optimism about life was the default
setting.
The fear, though, is
new. Fear of social decline, of all things foreign and even of
progress.
So, too, are the
errors, and there have been far too many of them.
How, for example,
could the Democratic Party have allowed itself to arrive at this
level of dependency on the Clintons -- how could it have slumped into
such dynastic thinking? Everyone in the party knows that Hillary
Clinton was strong in her campaign against Obama eight years ago --
and they know that she is no longer strong today. Instead, she's
frozen, someone who has been around for what feels like an eternity.
She still doesn't grasp her 2008 defeat and this time wants to
prevail in her aspiration. It is reckless for a party to push through
a weak candidate purely out of principle. And how sad it is that few
are still speaking of this wonderful goal, of finally -- after 43 men
-- shattering possibly the last remaining glass ceiling by electing
the first female president. There is no more passion or lightness in
the Clinton camp -- just panic, fear that the most absurd opponent
seen in the past 100 years cannot be defeated.
How could the entire
country have allowed the democracy for which it stands to fall into
this degree of decline? Years ago, two ranting men emerged at the
margins of society with a format called "talk radio": Rush
Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Americans have always been addicted to
entertainment and that helped allow these two stars to enter the
mainstream. And little by little, mainstream society began resembling
them. Hateful. Self-righteous. Intolerant. Frightened. Loud. And
disdainful of all that seemed too distant: education, ideas,
industriousness. The US became a dysfunctional country that was no
longer capable of debate, barely capable of making or sticking to
decisions and one that had lost that which had once been its source
of strength -- and it found nothing new to replace it, at least
nothing novel and good. Were this a company, the diagnosis would be
as follows: management has abandoned the core brand and botched the
restructuring process; bankruptcy is around the corner.
The entire American
democracy has also become an endless show, because CNN and other
broadcasters are thirsty for breaking news every hour to ensure good
ratings and advertising. Even lies pay off and are thus desired --
the result being that, after 18 months of campaigning, 50 percent of
those eligible to vote, 100 million people, still do not know today
where Trump and Clinton stand on policy. Instead, people scream "Lock
Her Up" and "Build the Wall" as soon as Trump takes
the stage. Good politicians don't play along with such nonsense.
And no, it's hardly
worth saying anything more about the man. How could the Republicans
ever have elevated a candidate like Trump to their throne, one so
self-absorbed, so misogynistic, so racist and so unqualified? At the
very least, the Republican Party has earned its own downfall.
On Tuesday, voting
will finally be complete, but there will be no solace -- only, we can
hope, the lesser of two evils. Things won't automatically return to
normal. Indeed, the American pendulum theory was always naïve
because history never starts over from scratch. The 2000 election,
decided by the Supreme Court, gave us George W. Bush who, after Sept.
11, attacked Afghanistan and later Iraq, leading to the
destabilization of the Middle East, the fall of Libya, Iraq and
Syria, to Islamic State, to Turkish and Egyptian dictatorships, to
the refugee crisis, Brexit, Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, Frauke Petry
and Trump, to the weakening of America and Europe. To the weakening
of the West and liberal democracy.
The relationship
between these events is not causal, of course. But elections and
political action have consequences, as we in Germany well know. And
the same could happen in America -- it could commit one irreversible
error too many.
Brutal Historical
Logic
Democracy
at a Dead-End in America
On
the eve of the US election, Hillary Clinton has a lead in the polls,
but it's a small one. Donald Trump's success is the logical outcome
of the decades-long erosion of liberal democracy in America.
© Wiebke Maria
Wachmann An Essay by Georg Diez
November 07, 2016
05:33 PM
I can hardly believe
it -- and my fingers are quivering as I type this -- but I'm afraid
that Donald Trump will be elected as the next president of the United
States.
How have I come to
that conclusion?
It has been like a
slow-motion train wreck that we have been watching in amazement, fear
and disgust over the course of the past several months. But now,
shortly before the trains finally plow into each other, something
akin to understanding has set in.
It may have been
misguided to focus too intently on the trains themselves. The real
story is the history of this country, which is so deeply and
traumatically divided. It is a country that is so profoundly rent
asunder by shock and change, so gripped by fear, that it is hardly
recognizable anymore.
The real story is
that of the last 35 years. Since the 1980 Reagan Revolution, a
conservative syndicate has systematically strived to destroy the
foundations of liberal democracy by elevating the economy,
selfishness and social Darwinism above all.
The real story is
that of the last 25 years. Since the election of Bill Clinton in
1992, the Democrats, the leftists and liberal forces (as has happened
with New Labour in Britain and the Social Democrats in Germany) have
capitulated to globalization as if to a law of nature. Step by step,
they have abandoned a significant segment of their voters: workers
and the lower-middle class.
The real story is
that of the last eight years, during which Barack Obama has been
president. For many Americans, his presidency remains an ignominy and
a disgrace because racism has such deep roots in American history and
now appears to many whites as a matter of survival. Sometimes it
seems as though it's all they have left.
The election of
Donald Trump by these white Americans would be a direct reaction to
the eight years of Barack Obama, a man who embodies the future and
opportunities of this country. In concert with reactionaries who have
come before, Trump invokes an idyllic past, to which it is impossible
to return, not even with violence.
A Rearguard Battle
of the Defeated
It would thus be a
tragedy if Trump won the election, but it would have a certain brutal
historical logic, because the pendulum often swings hard, first in
one direction and then in the other. What is happening in America --
and this too is comparable to Europe -- is a fight over "white
identity," as the New York Times described it. It is the
rearguard battle of a disappearing white majority.
But it is also the
rearguard battle of the defeated -- or at least those who see
themselves as such -- against the process of globalization, which
both Republicans and Democrats alike, from Reagan to Obama, have held
up as the key to future prosperity. Instead, though, globalization
has left large swathes of West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and
elsewhere desolated and empty -- materially, morally and politically.
It has permanently alienated segments of the population from
political consensus or even common sense.
Donald Trump has
plunged into this vacuum with a ruthlessness and brutality that has
left the Republican elite gasping for breath and crippled the party
for the foreseeable future -- and which has left the country's
liberal elite perplexed and horrified. They are simply unable to
believe that this vulgar oaf, this groping slob, this idiotic
demagogue could have a chance against their Hillary.
Did Journalists
Underestimate Trump?
For one thing has
long been clear: She was the one. Large segments of the liberal media
elite came to that consensus early on, as the consummate Thomas Frank
recently described. First Bernie Sanders gummed up the works, a
candidate they sought early on to reject, thus putting off huge
numbers of younger voters. And then Donald Trump became the uninvited
guest at the coronation party for the Democratic queen.
Many writers at
liberal newspapers and magazines were certain, and remain so even
now, that Trump no longer had a chance -- following the debates and
after the revelations of his tax privileges and corporeal sexism.
Every day, the New York Times has presented a graphic showing, up
until a few days ago, that Hillary Clinton had a 92 percent chance of
being elected. Seldom has data journalism fallen so low.
What everyone
overlooked, though, was that there was scant enthusiasm and few
convincing reasons to support Hillary -- and that there were many
good reasons to be for Trump, whether one liked them or not. And the
debates showed the entire world that there were many, many reasons to
fear Trump: He proudly and openly presented the anti-democratic
program of an authoritarian ruler who would have no consideration for
prevailing law or human dignity.
Hillary in prison,
to hell with the environment, a wall on the Mexican border, bomb the
shit out of ISIS, beat them up: Trump assembled a political platform
of horrors. His tax cuts would make Reagan's radical capitalism look
quaint; he would "cancel" the Paris climate deal; he would
establish a climate of hate and mistrust against blacks, Hispanics,
Muslims and all other minorities; he would appoint ultra-right-wing
justices to the Supreme Court and would thus determine the societal
climate on decisive social questions such as gun ownership and
abortion for a long time to come.
The hair-raising
logic underpinning this platform is that the country is still
suffering from the consequences of the economic and financial crises
that have dispossessed parts of the middle class since 2008. Those
who nonetheless vote for Trump are acting roughly as logically as
someone whose car, house and silver have been stolen -- but who
invites the thief to dinner anyway so he can take the table and
chairs as well.
A Dead-End for
America's Political Parties
But they are doing
so anyway and it took a long time for elite opinion makers to realize
what was happening. Thomas Frank described the phenomenon in his book
"Listen, Liberal," as did George Packer in the New Yorker:
The GOP, long the party of the rich, has under Trump become the party
of the working class and the disenfranchised -- because they feel
abandoned by the Democrats.
And so this campaign
-- ugly, grotesque and damaging to both decency and the practice of
democracy -- is indeed indicative of something larger. It is
indicative of a tectonic shift that is much more meaningful and which
will have lasting consequences. Through their ploys and scheming,
America's two largest political parties have maneuvered the
democratic system into a dead-end street -- and it is difficult to
imagine an escape without radical change.
The Republicans are
primarily responsible for the extensive destruction of the political
landscape which made an agitator like Trump possible. Since 2009,
they have waged such a fierce political battle against Barack Obama
-- characterized by manipulation and blocking him at every turn --
that damage to democracy has been the result. Trump's cries that the
system is "rigged" have met with such widespread agreement
because the Republicans themselves have spent so long cynically
perverting the system.
The fact that the
party has become increasingly radicalized in recent years -- to such
an extent that George W. Bush would today belong on the party's left
wing -- has played an important role. Republican Speaker of the House
Paul Ryan even describes himself as a "bomb-thrower from the
right" and as a "conservative from the conservative wing of
the conservative movement."
Movements aren't
interested in governing; they have the goal of transforming society.
That is what connects the Republicans' conservative revolution with
the uprising of the liberal conscience as embodied by Bernie Sanders.
But it makes little sense to view these two phenomena through the
lens of populism because the one side is rooted in fear, hate and
exclusion while the other preaches justice, fairness and
redistribution.
It is clear that
American society cannot continue down this road for much longer. The
tensions that have been apparent in recent years have become too
great, from the stagnating middle class to the structural racism that
has become manifested in the country's prison system in such a way
that it can now be compared to a new kind of slavery.
It is disastrous
that a racist with fascist tendencies has come so close to taking
over power in this country, a man who appeals to hate, greed and the
basest of instincts, an agitator who plays people off against each
other, who abhors losers and who adheres to the credo: might makes
right. An authoritarian, narcissistic, manic, manipulative and
dangerous liar who is capable of anything.
Division and
Rearrangement
That is why, despite
all the criticism of Hillary Clinton -- whose politics and mistakes
still fall within the realm of rationality -- I cannot understand how
some could be so enthralled by their destructive fantasies as to
yearn for a President Trump. It would transform America into an
explosive, iniquitous country in an explosive, unpredictable world.
There are good
reasons to be opposed to Clinton, a transitional figure from an era
of unfairness to an era that will be shaped by a new generation. Her
problem is that she cannot free herself from this blemish. She will
likely be unable to motivate a segment of the African-American
electorate, which was so electrified by Obama, and that could cost
her this election. It will be close, extremely close.
But America is in
the process of dividing and rearranging itself: It's rural America
versus the large cities; it's whites against everyone else; it's the
middle class against everyone else; it's the wars of years past,
which have cast their shadows over this campaign and led large
numbers of veterans from these destructive conflicts to vote for
Trump even though the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan were led by
Republican presidents.
Trump, the
irrationalist, isn't just profiting from Putin, WikiLeaks, the FBI
and the aggressive sexism that is loath to see a woman in the White
House. He is also profiting from the divisions that he has helped
create. He is a perpetual motion machine of hate.
Still, nothing has
yet happened. Everything remains possible.
What was Barack
Obama's campaign motto again?
Hope.
And anyway, Michelle
Obama has recently looked as though she were warming up for 2020.
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