The wonderful thing about elections is they end with a
decision. The divisions remain. But for the time being the question of
who governs is settled. This year’s US presidential election is on
course to be an exception. Even if Hillary Clinton wins the US electoral college by a big margin, hers would be the most grudging landslide in history.
A large chunk of Americans will be receptive to Donald Trump’s claim that the result was rigged.
Many of Mrs Clinton’s voters will have backed her only reluctantly on
the grounds that anything would be better than Mr Trump. She will enjoy
no honeymoon. Speculation about a one-term presidency will begin almost
as soon as she takes office.
Anyone who doubts this should remember President Barack Obama’s fate.
Now on the home stretch to retirement, he has spent the past six years
failing to persuade a hostile Congress to act. From annual budgets to
early-learning legislation, almost all of his efforts have come to
naught. His biggest legacies — healthcare reform and Wall Street
regulation — came within his first two years, when he had a Democratic
majority. Even now Republicans vow to repeal both laws at the first
opportunity. This year, Mr Obama has been unable even to push through
emergency help for areas affected by the Zika virus and a modest tightening of gun safety checks following a series of massacres. That is without facing re-election. What chance would Mrs Clinton have?
The
answer depends on two things. The first is whether Democrats can regain
control of Congress in November. There is a good chance they can
recapture a thin Senate majority
— somewhere around 51 seats to 49. But taking the House of
Representatives is a taller order. The chances that Democrats can regain
both chambers, a prerequisite for governing in today’s climate, are
thus slim.
The second is how Republicans interpreted a defeat for
Mr Trump. Would they recognise the time had finally come to turn the
party into a demographic big tent? If so, Mrs Clinton may be able to
find enough middle ground to push through big changes, such as tax reform and
an immigration overhaul. Or would the hardline conservatives, led by
Ted Cruz, the Texan senator who gave Mr Trump the biggest run for his
money in the primaries, see a chance to resume Tea Party-era
congressional brinkmanship? In that case, Mrs Clinton’s agenda would
stand little chance of daylight.
My
money would be on the latter. To be sure, a big Trump defeat would
embolden pragmatic Republicans to warn about their party’s fate in
California, which is now in a permanent minority in a state with a
non-white majority.
California’s present is America’s future. What happened there could prefigure the national Republican party’s decline. But that is the point reformers made after the party’s last defeat
in 2012, when they urged it to cease the intolerant rhetoric about gay
people and women’s reproductive rights and extend an olive branch to Hispanic Americans. The party’s grass roots was obviously unswayed by the autopsy since it nominated Mr Trump.
It is hard to see how Republican pragmatists would be able to convince an embittered Trump base, which believed Mrs Clinton had stolen the election,
to abandon its strongest beliefs. Mr Cruz, on the other hand, is too
clever a politician to ask them to do that. A Trump defeat would sharply
improve his chances of winning his party’s crown in 2020. For anyone
who is sick of America’s permanent election, I have some discouraging
news: it really is permanent. The next cycle has already begun. The
opening shot was at Mr Trump’s convention in Cleveland, in which Mr Cruz
refused to endorse the Republican nominee. Instead he urged an almost
unanimously booing hall to “vote your conscience” in November.
Mr
Cruz’s non-endorsement of Mr Trump was dramatic political theatre. With
the hindsight of a Trump defeat, it will start to look prescient — even
courageous — just as Mr Cruz intended.
Mr Cruz has a head-start on his potentially biggest rival, Paul Ryan,
speaker of the House of Representatives, whose timid attempts at
legislative compromise with Democrats have caused him to lose his halo
among conservatives.
Mr Cruz will also have an edge on Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, whose chances of re-election in November are touch and go.
Either
way, the contest is in motion. Being nice to Mrs Clinton will be held
up as a disqualification. Blocking her initiatives will be seen as a
credential. By large margins Republican voters say Mrs Clinton is dishonest — as do a minority of Democrats.
In
time all political trends come to an end. Unfortunately for Mrs
Clinton, America’s deep polarisation — and the breakdown of the
Republican party — has yet to run its course. Mr Trump’s nomination has
probably extended the agony. Since he has adopted unorthodox positions,
including support for current levels of social security
and Medicare spending, conservatives will be able to say: “I told you
so: we strayed from our principles by nominating an immoral big spender
from New York.”
That will be Mr Cruz’s pitch. It will also be Mrs
Clinton’s bane. Whether she wins small or big, she will inherit a
poisoned well. edward.luce@ft.com
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