All bets are off

There are fourteen months before the US presidential election. I can make some confident predictions. One is that by the time the actual election comes around we’ll all be fed up with politics. All that money spent over all those months will leave us underwhelmed and cynical.

The pundits seem united in a second prediction. Despite all the noise generated by Trump just now, in the end it will be a normal election with normal candidates. On that prediction, I am not so sure.

You can see why the pundits are so confident. There have been insurgent candidates before, and their popularity usually runs out when the scrutiny becomes more serious and the chips are down. The machines of money and punditry generally make it so. One or two mistakes become amplified to demonstrate that somehow the candidate is unfit for office, and there goes another gallant failed campaign.

This is already starting to happen, but in low gear. Observe the way big money and big journalism treat Bernie Sanders. It is condescending to him and insulting to the intelligence of the average American, but it usually works – whatever that may say about the intelligence of average Americans, or more likely their interest in politics. Sanders is portrayed as a well-meaning old amateur. His ideas are lavished with faint praise. It would be great, people agree, if there was a financial transactions tax, but, ha ha, how can that be practical in modern America? This is self-serving and hypocritical – the only reason such things may be impractical is that the might of the establishment will unite to try to stop it.

One thing I hate is that Sanders is portrayed as the equivalent of Trump, the Democrat’s extremist in the same way that Trump is the Republican’s. That is such an easy claim to make, but it is disingenuous. Sanders actually talks about policy and has a coherent manifesto, whereas Trump (and, as far as I can tell, most of the other Republicans) just has sound bites. But the sneaky equivalence is another way the establishment is using its weaponry.

Why I am less sure that these tactics will work this time around is related to what I observe in the rest of the world. There is a sense that politics is less predictable and less controllable than it was a few years ago.

This may have started with the spate of EU referendum embarrassments including in France and the Netherlands, when the public reacted to being patronized by the elite. The trend has accelerated through the rise of xenophobic populist parties throughout Europe, who in converts by appearing to speak for normal concerns of people and portraying themselves as not tainted by the establishment.

Since the banking crisis, this trend has accelerated as trust in traditional politicians has evaporated. In Italy, a comedian is the second-most powerful politician. In Greece, an inconceivably radical government with a firebrand finance minister took office this year. In France, if I was into betting I would be backing Marine Le Pen to become president in a couple of years time.

And look at the UK, as conservative a place as you could imagine, whether with a small or a big C. The Scottish referendum was nearly lost. The liberals have, sadly, imploded into irrelevance, perhaps for a generation – Nick Clegg garotted by the press. Labour may have just followed down the same path by electing a throwback leader who will be easy pickings for the Daily Mail. The stage is set for a disastrous EU referendum next year. What seemed unthinkable has quickly become all too possible.

Various trends have made this possible. Current generations have no recollection of war, so feel freer to experiment in their voting. “Inherited” voting patterns have, thankfully, broken down. Celebrity society has us all seeking sound bites and believing in star quality over old-fashioned competence or experience.

And the establishment politicians have created their own downfall. Most would rather rouse the rabble than make a reasoned argument, and many play up to celebrity culture. Corruption and cynicism have eroded what trust used to exist. And few are ready to make a positive argument these days.

It is heart-warming to see Angela Merkel rising above this mediocrity once again this last week, with her passionate defence of refugees. This just goes to show that a positive, humane message is possible to craft and to gain support for. The same is entirely feasible for the EU – yet generally it does not happen.

Now back to the US. It is true that the armlock of the establishment and the media in the US is even stronger than in Europe. Money talks even more on this side of the Atlantic, the two political parties control most of the power, and the print media are surprisingly supine. Campaign finance rules make this armlock even stronger.

And yet. The trends we see in Europe are even stronger in the US. Celebrity culture is even more prevalent. War feels even more distant – despite the recent sacrifices of youngsters in Iraq. Political corruption is even more obvious. Establishment politicians do little to inspire confidence – honestly who could vote for or trust McConnell or Boehner, the respective majority leaders in the senate or the house? And the almost complete absence of responsible news reporting makes the populace even more easily seduced by sound bites.

And then there is Donald Trump. He comes across as an odious misogynist without any empathy for normal people, and he opens his mouth before engaging his brain. Yet somehow he remains top of the polls. Why?

Trump’s great advantage is that he is transparently independent. He does not need donors so does not have to sing to the tune of the money men. He is basically taking the piss out of the whole system, and people can see that and love it. His put down of Jeb Bush “More energy tonight, I like that” was quite brilliant.

So the people trying to control politics have been hoist by their own petard. They promote opinions based on one-liners rather than any analysis, feeling that this is controllable. People can see this is happening but still fall for the one-liners. Then along comes someone who throws the method back in their face, using one-liners even more populist but plainly his one-liners not some puppeteer’s.

And that is enough. Trump actually has supported many of the concepts that these back room men have lambasted over the years, such as socially managed healthcare. But the people don’t really care about such issues, they were just temporarily wound up by a previous campaign. It is politics as reality TV, and Trump has style and deep pockets.

I don’t think it will carry Trump to the nomination. In the end he will be brought low by the establishment, and for sure there is plenty of ammunition to destroy him with once people really start trying. My fear is not that he will win, but that he will disrupt the process enough to let in someone like Ted Cruz, a man who appears to be just as divisive and dangerous by not called Donald.

If this happens, the Republicans have only themselves to blame. But it will not just be them that suffer, it will be all of us, since of course politics has higher stakes than a reality TV show. Before dismissing this possibility out of hand, remember what has happened in Europe that seemed impossible just a few years ago. Throw in a couple of ill-timed events to randomize things further, just like reality TV. All bets should most definitely be off.