Hillary Clinton: First Term Lame Duck
We have never seen a campaign like this one. I would like to see lots more.
Both of them call each other liars. There are no kid gloves in this race.
Trump brought women to the second debate who accuse Bill Clinton of rape. Nothing like this had happened in American history. His campaign has accused her of persecuting these women.
Donald Trump's pledge Sunday night that he would order his attorney general to investigate Hillary Clinton, and his quip that she should "be in jail," is a direct breach of the tradition of nonpartisan rule of law."If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. Because there has never been so many lies, so much deception, there has never been anything like it," Trump said during the second presidential debate.
I love this: "a direct breach of the tradition of nonpartisan rule of law." Nonsense. It is the pledge of a candidate who has said his opponent has broken the law repeatedly. Refusing to prosecute her would be a violation of the rule of law. But saying this in public at the national debate is a violation of the non-partisan old boy network in Washington.
These two have stripped each other of legitimacy. Never have two more hated and mistrusted presidential candidates run against each other. There is no trace of "hail fellow, well met" in this race.
The key to government is legitimacy. The one holding final authority must persuade those under his jurisdiction that self-government must reinforce the hierarchy. Without self-government, the head of no government -- church, state, or family -- can rule securely. There will be too much resistance. It will take too many resources to enforce compliance.
The Republican Party's establishment has always been ready to cooperate with Democrats in a bipartisan fashion. This is called good government. But when the leaders of both parties are committed to bankrupting federal deficits, the bipartisanship should end. Someone should say: "Thus far, and no farther." This is what Trump is saying.
This is Trump's threat to the system: an end to the old boy network. This is why he has so little support from the Republic establishment.
Trump represents millions of alienated voters. They are not going to be placated by the likes of Paul Ryan. They have a taste of power. They will not go back into the shadows next year.
I think the same is true of Bernie Sanders' army.
This election has pulled the hard core out of the respective sidelines. They got involved. They are appalled at the respective party establishments. If a hard core of these hard cores get involved at the precinct level after this election, it will disrupt the bipartisan alliance in Congress.
When the economy goes into recession, as it will before 2020, confrontational rhetoric will escalate from the rival non-establishment constituencies. It will be difficult for the parties' old boy networks to suppress this revolt.
We are seeing the end of bipartisanship in Washington. We are seeing gridlock. But this is merely the first stage of the division. This has undermined inter-party political cooperation. The next stage will be intra-party confrontation. This will add to gridlock.
It is happening in Great Britain today. All four parties -- Conservative, Labor, Liberal Democrats, UKIP -- are in turmoil.
This is good news for those of us who want a gridlocked federal government that is powerless to fix the broken system or bring in anything new.
We are seeing the splintering of the political alliances of the the post-1945 Keynesian world. Its legitimacy is being removed by the voters. There are tens of millions of voters who do not trust the political system that threw up Clinton and Trump. One of them will win. Either will be a lame duck from day one.