Well, Iowa is done, and, fortunately, I didn’t make any predictions, because I would have messed up the Republican side entirely. As I recall, though I can’t find the post, the last time I was heard from, I was predicting a Bush win, marking me as the dumbest prognosticator in the country. Fortunately—or not—my vaguer piece, “Are We Germany Yet?”, held up pretty well, as Trump/Cruz on the right, and Bernie Sanders on the left, took more than half the vote.
The American people are in a state, mad as hell about the Great Recession and the massive bailout/counter-cyclical spending that saved the world—and particularly the U.S.—from disaster, but did not restore “good times”, along with the Bush and Obama administrations’ bloody and ineffectual response to Islamic terrorism. Americans are in a fiercely xenophobic mood, blaming all their problems on either foreigners or the “corrupt” leaders at the top who won’t deal with them, an “analysis” that is both deeply depressing and entirely false. Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, everyone’s favorites, are the only ones not pandering to this mood, though Bernie Sanders gets points for not being a racist.1
The big news on the Republican side is the success of both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and the relative decline of Donald Trump. Acela Republicans are surely delighted by Rubio’s strong showing, but, clearly, Rubio is going to have to go through Cruz to get the nomination, and Ted doesn’t strike me as a gracious loser. Both Rubio and Cruz would make appalling presidents, as would Trump, of course, so I can only hope for a long, grueling primary campaign, during which Bush, Kasich, and Chris Christie all refuse to drop out, during which all the candidates find themselves pushed into virulently anti-immigrant, anti-free trade, and anti-abortion positions, and after which the party itself is divided and dispirited. Because St. Hillary is going to need all the help she can get.
Afterwords
Am I still carrying a torch for the only candidate who wants to (ultimately) give citizenship to 11 million illegal aliens and push (quietly) for free trade? Yes.2
- In 2015, one gets points in America for not being a racist. How charming! ↩︎
- Hillary is also much better on a variety of conventional liberal issues, notably reproductive rights. I’ve previously enumerated (some) of her shortcomings, notably her instinctive pugnacity in foreign affairs. Back in the day, it was often said of Americans travelling abroad that they thought that all foreigners were deaf. If you just told them (in English) what you wanted loudly enough, you would get it. Hillary reminds me of those people. ↩︎
