AMERICANS dismayed by the 2016 elections should brace themselves: next year political divisions will probably deepen. With a hot-headed, thin-skinned President Donald Trump in charge of the nuclear codes, the worst-case scenario would resemble “Dr Strangelove”. But weighing the lessons of the Republican and Democratic national conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia, even the best-case scenario—in which Hillary Clinton becomes president, acknowledges that she will need bipartisan support and woos congressional leaders over White House dinners and late-night whiskies—will echo “All Quiet on the Western Front”.
The causes of political trench-warfare range from giant, multi-year trends to petty calculations by individual members of Congress. Start with large forces. At the 2016 conventions the parties did not so much disagree on how to solve America’s problems, as speak to two different countries. The Republican convention was a four-day lament for stolen national greatness. Delegates heard about an America under domestic assault from terrorists and immigrants, and left at the mercy of foreign foes by corrupt elites. Democrats celebrated...Continue reading
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