2016: Nixon v. Nixon

On the one hand, you have a paranoiac whose maniacal need to protect her secrets caused her to endanger national security and receive an essentially unprecedented tongue-lashing from the head of the FBI in front of a national audience. From her initial tenure in the White House—when she denounced the “vast right wing conspiracy” lined up against her—to her current complaints about the coverage surrounding her shady dealings (“I often feel like there’s the Hillary standard and then there’s the standard for everybody else“), Hillary has long been filled with loathing for the bastards in the press corps and resented the lack of respect she has received from the opposition…

On the other hand, meanwhile, you have a guy who is running something like a viciously concentrated version of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.” Trump’s is a law-and-order, fear-and-loathing campaign that has focused on whipping up angst about illegal immigration of Mexicans and legal immigration of Muslims. It’s one designed to appeal to rural whites who feel ignored by the eggheads in Washington, D.C., those voters who believe that corporate fat cats have shipped their jobs overseas (regardless of how fact-based those feels are). And, at least in that regard if no other, it’s been remarkably successful: In a poll that showed Trump’s post-RNC bounce putting him above Clinton for the first time, Trump actually lost support among college-educated whites while gaining the allegiance of whites without college education. Trump’s going to need to win as many of those college-less whites as he possibly can, given that he’s polling at literally zero percent with black voters in several key swing states and only 14 percent of Hispanics who are registered to vote support him.