Us politics

I have a sinking feeling that Joe Biden might be the next president of the United States. In a brilliant essay published by the American Spectator in 2010, Angelo Codevilla of Boston University foresaw a popular revolt against ‘America’s ruling class’. What he calls ‘the Country party’ repudiates the co-option of the mainstream Republican party by the bureaucratic behemoth that is Washington, DC. You cannot understand the popularity of Donald Trump until you grasp the essential characteristics of this Country party. White, male, ageing Americans are sick of political correctness. They are sick of carefully calibrated talking points. They are sick of immigrants. They are sick of wars in faraway places of which they know nothing and care less.

   Washington DC Ben Carson is relaxed. ‘He’s always relaxed,’ says an aide. The next televised Republican primary debate is two days away, but Dr Carson is about to begin his first rehearsal for it. The preternatural calm he exudes is presumably what gave him his steady hands during the 22-hour operation that led to him becoming the first surgeon to successfully separate Siamese twins fused at the head. That operation is part of the Carson legend: growing up poor, black, becoming chief of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins aged 33. This life story has aided an improbable presidential bid that is now starting to look more plausible. Carson is polling second in a Republican field of 16 and he has momentum.

They call it the summer of Trump. Only a year ago everyone expected the 2016 presidential election to be a clash of dynasties, with Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush enjoying coronations by the Democrats and Republicans. But Bernie Sanders, the socialist Senator from Vermont, is proving to be a formidable challenge to Clinton. Even more disruptive, on the Republican side, has been Donald Trump. While Sanders represents the left wing of a common progressivism he shares with Hillary Clinton, Trump is challenging conservative orthodoxy itself by giving voice to a robust right-wing populism. Populists love outsiders, can-do executives and simple policy panaceas, and Trump, a billionaire real estate developer and veteran reality television star, gives the people what they want.

The American presidential race seemed more like a playground fight than a clash of politics this week as would-be Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton drew her claws on her Republican counterpart Donald Trump. The rumpus was sparked by Trump's comments on Megyn Kelly’s tough approach towards him during a recent Republican Party debate. ‘You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever,' he said. The possibility that Trump was blaming Kelly’s harsh tone on her menstrual cycle predictably sent social media into meltdown. Never too far from a scandal, Clinton seized her chance. In a public statement she described Trump’s comments as ‘outrageous’.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/theosbornesupremacy/media.mp3" title="Freddy Gray and Sebastian Payne discuss the rise of Donald Trump" startat=1607] Listen [/audioplayer]Lunatics with money are never ‘mad’, only eccentric. In America, they are also Republican presidential candidates. So Donald Trump, a barmy billionaire with a mouth bigger than his bank balance is leading the race to be the party’s next nominee. It’s a sad indictment of the American political process. And it is a distraction from how strong American conservatism could be. More than a dozen major Republicans are standing.

The centrist Democratic party bequeathed to President Barack Obama by Bill Clinton is not the one he will leave to his successor. By every measure, it is more left-wing, and more populist both in spirit and ideological composition. And this poses serious problems for the campaign of the candidate seen as America’s most likely next president: Hillary Clinton. That she knows it’s a problem is obvious from the way her campaign has begun. ‘Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion,’ she declared in a video released last weekend. Almost a year ago, launching the memoir of her time as Secretary of State, Clinton had begun testing populist themes. The nation, she said at the time, must ‘deal with the cancer of inequality’.

 Washington DC   Bored American reporters are pining for a Democratic primary challenger to step up against Hillary Clinton in 2016. We don’t like coronations. It’s not just cynical Republicans who cheered at ‘emailgate’ — the crisis Clinton faced after it emerged she had used a private account for her emails as Secretary of State. It makes matters more interesting, and moves the spotlight on to other, less celebrated politicians. The media is consequently obsessed with the idea that Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat admired by Occupy Wall Street, can take on Hillary. The more logical opponent is Joe Biden, the Vice President. There’s also Bernie Sanders, self-described socialist senator from Vermont.

 Washington DC and Iraq   We stood on a bleak hillside in eastern Iraq looking at a makeshift grave. It held a dozen Shia Arabs, according to the Kurdish troops escorting us. The dead were men, women and children murdered by fighters from the so-called Islamic State as they retreated, said the Kurds. We stepped gingerly around scraps of women’s clothing and a bone poking out through the dirt. In the town on the dusty plain below, Shi’ite militias were busy taking revenge on Sunnis, our escorts said, looting and killing. The town’s Sunni Arab population had fled to a miserable camp. Streams of sewage ran between their tents. But they wouldn’t go home, they said, until the militias left, replaced by the army. They may be there a while.