: SPECIAL REPORT The Race for the White House Madrid, August 2016 Barcelona • Bogota • Buenos Aires • Havana • Lima • Lisbon • Madrid • Mexico City • Miami • New York City • Panama City • Quito • Rio de Janeiro • Sao Paulo Santiago • Santo Domingo • Washington, DC THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE 1. INTRODUCTION If the American elections were held today, Hillary Clinton would 1. INTRODUCTION be elected the 45th president of the United States. Over the last 2. THE BACKSTORY month, Donald Trump has fumbled away his brief lead in national 3. THE CANDIDATES polls and trails in the handful of battleground states that will 4. THE CAMPAIGNS ultimately decide who wins and who loses. Hillary Clinton has 5. WHAT MATTERS? been smart enough to let her opponent trip over his own ego and 6. THE MORNING AFTER political inexperience, without offering new targets to her many 7. THE MORNING AFTER THE enemies across the political spectrum. MORNING AFTER Pollsters, the media and elites have already declared the election all but over. Figure 1. Clinton vs. Trump: the polls Source: Huffpost Pollster (August 17, 2016) But the election is not today, and pollsters, the media and –above all– the elites have been wrong about Donald Trump since he declared his candidacy in June 2015, saying, “We need somebody that literally will take this country and make it great again.” The fact is that Clinton can still lose and Trump can still win, and imagining a path to a Trump victory does not also require belief in Santa Claus or unicorns. Actually, against all odds, he already did in the primary elections. It does, however, require recognition that Trump is not a normal candidate that politics are going through a dramatic change in the rules of the game, that there is a deep malaise gripping significant numbers of Americans, and that the political and economic elite are largely disconnected from what is happening in much of the country. 2 THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE Trump is also blessed by having Hillary Clinton as an opponent. She is perceived by many –Republicans, Democrats and independents– as a flawed candidate; if she wins, she would enter office with the highest unfavorable ratings (53 %) and the lowest trust ratings (two-thirds of the respondents in a July CNN poll called her untrustworthy) of any modern U.S. president1. (Trump’s unfavorable –averaging 61 %– are even higher2.) In her own party, she had to beat back a surprisingly strong challenge from a 74-year-old senator, Bernie Sanders. There are many explanations, but surely the most compelling is that voters are deeply unhappy with the status quo, with politics as usual and with conventional politicians, and Hillary Clinton personifies all three. 1 CNN Poll, July 25, 2016 2 Real Clear Politics, August 12, 2016, average of recent polls 3 THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE 2. THE BACKSTORY 15 years, mostly due to depression (suicide) and the But this election is not, in consequences of alcohol the first instance, about the and drug abuse3; candidates. Rather it is about a country in which two- • Americans tell pollsters thirds of citizens tell pollsters that, compared to 50 years “In recent years the the nation is heading in the ago, life for people like middle class has been wrong direction, in which them is either worse (46 %) squeezed by stagnant overwhelming majorities say or the same (14 %) and that they think existing political they expect life for the incomes, excessive and economic institutions are next generation to be worse debt, job losses and rigged against them, and in (51 %) or the same (18 %)4; a marked sense that which 85 to 90 % say they are frustrated or angry with the • 40 % of Americans told the their best years are federal government and the Federal Reserve in a 2015 behind them” political system. survey that they either could not cope with a $400 The United States has defined household emergency itself as a middle class country or would have to sell at least since the early 1950s. something or borrow However, in recent years the from family to do so5; middle class has been squeezed by stagnant incomes, excessive • By a variety of measures, debt, job losses and a marked almost 60 % of U.S. high sense that their best years are schoolers are neither job behind them: –nor college– ready when they graduate6. • Median real household income today is only The result is that the slightly higher than it percentage of Americans who was in 1996; define themselves to pollsters as “middle class” dropped from • Uniquely among 60 % in 2000 to 51 % in 2015 industrial countries, and seems to be still falling, the life expectancy of while many of those who still white Americans has think they are middle class declined during the last say they are badly squeezed. 3 “Rising morbidity and mortality among white non- Hispanic Americans in the 21st century,” Anne Case and Angus Deaton, September 2015, Proceedings of the National Academy 4 “American Rage: The Esquire/NBC News Survey,” Esquire Magazine, January 3, 2016 5 “Report on the Economic Well Being of US Households in 2014,” May 2015, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System 6 “The Condition of College and Career Readiness, 2015,” ACT 7 Quinnipiac University Poll, April 15, 2016 4 THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE As a consequence, two-thirds notwithstanding, that whites of Americans say they want were disproportionately hit by “radical change,” including the Great Recession, and blame majorities of both Republicans the (black) President. (71 %) and Democrats (58 %) 7. Regardless of the explanation, This political and economic recent polling shows that, “Recent polling insecurity needs one other while most Republicans are shows that, while element to complete the not racists, racists people are picture: identity insecurity. The more likely to cast their votes most Republicans are United States has always been on Trump9. not racists, racists a white majority country, fed are more likely to by great waves of European immigration. However, the 3. THE CANDIDATES be Republicans, as most recent immigration well as full-throated wave was from Mexico with Hillary Clinton has been Trump supporters” the result that non-Hispanic described as the most famous whites will soon be the largest woman whom no one really minority. Last year the U.S. knows, in spite of 25 years on Census Bureau reported that, the national and global stages. for the first time, a majority of During her stints as First Lady, American children under five Senator and Secretary of State are black, Asian or Hispanic8. she developed deep expertise in Thereby, the white middle a wide range of domestic and class American becomes a foreign policy issues. confused minority. Like the good lawyer she is, One last complicating, Clinton has a reputation for controversial dynamic. In the learning her brief almost better age of Obama, researchers and than her clients. But she also pollsters have documented has a long history of adopting a resurgence of racism. different personas. At various Some of this is old fashioned times she has been an idealist resentment of a black man (as in her heartfelt advocacy who “should not” be president for children’s rights), a (evident in the still lingering pragmatist (as in her aggressive conviction among some people work on behalf of her New York that Obama was not born constituents), a hawk (as an in America and that he is a advocate for airstrikes against Muslim); some of it is a more Qaddafi’s Libya and Assad’s modern version which insists, Syria) and a progressive (as evidence to the contrary when she abandoned years in 8 “Census: Minority babies are now majority in United States,” Washington Post, May 17, 2015 9 “The disturbing data on Republicans and racism: Trump backers are the most bigoted within the GOP,” Chauncey Devega, Salon, July 6, 2016 5 THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE favor of free trade agreements Trump is supremely self- “We see in in the face of Bernie Sanders’ confident; even voters who Donald Trump: the challenge). This shape shifting should otherwise be repulsed partly explains the lack by his misogyny and crude extroversion and social of trust that has become language (like evangelicals) are dominance, the volatile a key component of her drawn to his decisiveness. In temper, the shades of political baggage. a world of terrorist outrages, banning Muslims from narcissism, the populist Clinton’s decades on stage coming to the United States authoritarian appeal” have produced more than sounds reasonable to people their share of scandals, real who watch images of Muslim or invented by her enemies. suicide bombers on their Google “Hillary Clinton news feeds. scandals” and the entries seem endless: the suicide of Vince As a businessman he made Foster, Whitewater, the Clinton (and lost) fortunes developing Foundation, her private email building projects and server, Benghazi, huge speaking marketing a larger-than-life fees from Goldman Sachs, etc. persona, stamping his brand Whether that’s noblesse oblige, in huge letters on everything corruption, or the inevitable from apartment towers to barnacles accumulated in casinos to airliners to steaks. the hand-to-hand combat of Life, he proclaims, is about modern politics depends on successful deal making; even the eye (and the politics) of when he loses –like his multiple the beholder – but it helps bankruptcies– he is able to to explain why many voters imagine a parallel universe hate her. where the loss is somehow a win. Who is Donald Trump? A recent Atlantic psychological profile Unlike most modern American ended by comparing Trump presidential campaigns, to the 19th century populist ideology– in terms of president, Andrew Jackson: right vs.