In fact, the similarities between the Democrat and Republican conventions were striking. Trump’s nomination might have been a rebellion against the Republican elite, but once he got the nomination he had to deal with a revolt against his revolt – indicating that both of America’s main parties are fracturing. The Democrats are torn culturally and strategically. Hillary’s people think that the best way to win is to offer an orderly contrast with Trump. She promises, in effect, to be Obama’s third term. Sanders represents those who don’t see much to gain from keeping the status quo: students indebted for life by college fees; blue-collar Americans who have watched their jobs go to China; the poor languishing on handouts.
As these two sides of the American Left duked it out, the Democrats visibly fossilised into the party of the dot com millionaire and the professional activist – as far flung to the Left of the US political spectrum as the Republicans are to the Right. One speaker talked the convention through an abortion she’d had when she was younger – as casually and enthusiastically as one might extol the virtues of Botox.
These past two weeks have proven that the Republicans and Democrats are as bad as each other. But there is one crucial difference which, increasingly, gives the electoral edge to the Republicans. Donald Trump is relevant. He is setting the political agenda and he is speaking to it. Hillary Clinton is not.
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