A Three-Way Race, and Other Outcomes

The response of Donald Trump to criticism of his sexual conduct, or proclaimed habits of misconduct has, arguably and unbelievably to many if not those floating the verbal abyss of unconditioned zealotry, masked as political preference, received a stern – I would say unprecedented – rebuke from president Obama, who in no-nonsense terms has proclaimed "democracy itself" to be at stake on the eighth of November. Not for the first time, and for reasons that for the reasons unmentioned should arouse concern rather than sheer disgust, I echo some relief at being unable - as well as reluctant - to cast a ballot in this last of contests of a racket reality show of an electoral cycle - well, unless turning your attention to the senatorial race and its adjoining debate in old King Louis' country - a cycle now depreciated to the utmost depths. Only the further decline of both parties is assured, and with it hopefully the tendency to promote candidates more in line with the popular demand and able to mobilise these in an optimistic as well as zealous effort.

But that these are strange and surprising times must be reassured as well as repeated, and in theory as well as in a future imaginable a third option could herald the possible - I must say I considered "covetable" - defeat of both Clinton and Trump, a challenge from dismayed quarters (RedState.com and Mr. Kristol being my usual suspects) who last August filed papers to put the well-spoken, if politically inexperienced and abysmally obscure 40-year old Evan McMullin, a Mormon and former CIA operative with a neoconservative streak, a TED Talker and worth watching at that, in a late counter-challenge to the seemingly victorious Trumpian effort to subvert the Republican Party.

"The constitution is great, but it doesn't necessarily give us the right to commit suicide... okay?"

You know who said it.
(A question for Justice Scalia's eventual successor to ponder.)

In order to believe the unbelievable you have to accept that McMullin, a conservative Mormon, could win Utah - arguably a bit of a stretch (four points to be precise, or precisely the margin of error). You then have to believe - arguably not so likely, though in light of the polls of late, continued disenchantment with the Clinton campaign, and the stated intentions and substantial efforts of WikiLeaks, it should be noted that it has not too long ago been a reality - the election will be close enough for no party to reach the gloated number 270, an event last occurring in 1824 (despite the best efforts of Governor Thurmond and First Gentleman Wallace to subvert the efforts of the party which did elevate them into office and prominence). If so occurred, the choice otherwise inherent to the much loathed Electoral Collage would be dropped, under the rules of the Twelfth Amendment, into the lap of the even more loathed House of Representatives.

Anything but a landslide for Democratic candidates would leave the House, and thus its fifty individual delegations, safely in Republican hands - of whom sixty-something currently have pledged not to lend Trump a Newton's worth of support. Anything but a strengthened majority for the Grand Old Party, a huge stretch now, would leave the selection at the mercy of a section of self-announced Trump-haters, and with the disapproval of the Republican leadership past seething and utterly lacking confidence in its own nominee, it is safe - perhaps even reasonable - to assume such might be found ub an absolutely unknown Arabic- and Portuguese-speaking Mormon and former CIA operative (two reasons to the this rare condition) and thus elevate the second non-partisan - a nobody of a record-low 40 years, with no political experience from a state, a denomination long on the fringes - to the highest of offices.

Al Wajjah Rayiys? O Rosto de um Presidente?

Sorry... in the tongue of the Prophet; "(is this) the face of a president"?

The real stickler is that even under tight contest, McMullin - repeat the name again, make it stick - would have to break the barrier left unbroken since said Wallace's candidacy in 1968 - if you see the ad, scream loud if any point seems familiar - now (as then) explicitly grasped for this goal, and win a bag of electoral votes for himself, thus qualifying for the select three - a three which, the last and second time the Twelfth Amendment kicked in, included illustrious men such as William Harris Crawford, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

Could this feat be possible? I have just outlined it. (A later poll, I can say now, put McMullin one point ahead of Clinton, one behind of Trump; a still later one in the lead, with four points advantage over Trump, seven to Clinton.) What is arguably more concerning would be the popular mandate of a leader who would poll in single digits, nationally. But as just suggested in above example, where the illustrious, well-travelled and unabashedly intelligent Quincy Adams was carried into his ninety-year old father-predecessor's office on the back of a mere seven states, and given the lack of disenchantment and distrust in Mr McMullin's character and judgment - a quality shared by all otherwise qualified Americans passing the Grand Central Terminal on a good day - a Ralph Nader-unlike scenario, with only consequences far more dramatic in their immediate content, should not be ruled out.

A historic result, regardless of winner. The question is, could it herald the outcome, and a second Independent president, on the national stage? A later poll put McMullin at 31 %, overtaking Trump at 27 points and Clinton at 24, with Johnson collapsed.

In light of the absent agenda of the former Secretary of State, the rebuking of her campaign campaign is amazing, heart-warming, but as hollow as the 26 %-plurality and possible victory in the redder-than-most Beehive State. The outrage over a Twitter rant to repeal the 19th Amendment, a sheer piece of trolling meant to highlight a proposal which would supposedly hand the election to the virtue of male Americans, and thus to Trump (which it would not - presuming congressional approval and no legal interference, the issue would be thrown back to the states and their respective constitutions and Bills of Rights, where mostly female-majority electorates would have to, in most cases by referenda, approve of said limitations separately for the proposed change to take effect - now tell me you are offended) does imply a preference for a high turnout, high on my wishlist, but not even this victory-heralding measure is followed by solid, plausible ideas how to make this effort more likely, in a year of the dreadful.

To those solidly behind the Clinton campaign, my challenge stands; find me a set of policy proposals, say three, issued by and in your view likely to be enacted under Clinton. Exempli gratia; a wall along the Southron border, a redefined, pay-or-we-won't-come-and-play NATO, a strong tariff on foreign-produced manufacturers (did I say Mexico?), a blanket ban on migration from Muslim/terrorist cuntry's, something "far worse" than waterboarding, and every acronym relating to free trade in tatters at the bottom of the dustbin. Again; Glass-Steagall reinstated, a federal tax rate reaching 90 %, Medicare-for-all, free community college, free childcare across the Union, and a moratorium-turned-ban on the federal death penalty. So far, no good answers, no real takers - admittedly, an answer in itself. With Trump and Sanders, the two great outsiders of the year, perhaps of the century, this was easy and often condensed into oft-repeated, if yet robotic or appalling slogans.

Could anyone have expected Donald Trump to receive double digits in a presidential election back in 2012, or 2008? Who will be there in 2020, or 2024? Knowing what you know, who will you rule out from certainty?

The relative unlikelihood of the three-way scenario in Utah, and how it could conceivably alter the result on the national stage, should at any rate give pause for sound reflection. The resounding defeat of elephant and donkey has in some sense been achieved, as signified by the incredible stand of two candidates so widely despised that the early, and well-funded - though not necessarily in the sense of big capital - triumphs of Sanders and Trump seemed to shake the very system in which they could not long ago have expected no shares.

Since his triumph, Trump has been all but excommunicated from the GOP, and Sanders has already slithered out of the hide which he, if yet gratefully and leaving much in return through his audacious effort, tried to fit, and stretch to accommodate his more radical preferences. What remains to be seen after the defeat of the outsiders and the re-demarcation of the two-party system is the rise of a credible third option. I believe, given one more financial meltdown, that Gary Johnson could repeat and keep climbing (an deliberate analogy) into double digits, or second place. Worse, and perhaps more likely, we might see a protectionist, populist candidate in reach of the White House, in a mock repeat of the astounding year 1912.

These labels, I allow, may be applied to Sanders as well, and public pressure on both candidates - made available by the primaries which ought to be the envy of the world, now much its freakshow of smear and superficiality - will inevitably lead either to accommodation of the fortress to fit the mainstream, or the reinforcement to make the mainstream even more peripheral. Whichever course is triumphant, we will see trends of both, tending towards the former. Wilson rebuked Bryan upon returning the Democratic Party to the academics, the snobs, to New York and New England elites, but his eight years saw as wide-reaching, cataclysmic, everlasting impact such as a permanent Federal Reserve; a non-sexist franchise across all the Union; the internationalist-minded policeman, his baton exposed and falling; prohibition of alcoholic beverages (arguably not his achievement, nor more "everlasting" than the others). Roosevelt, rebuked by Taft (arguably with a vengeance - but let us not forget venerable Vermont or Utah) saw his party undergo changes that two presidential races later had seen the rise of a presidential administration almost perfectly antithetical to his own, having seen the beginning of gradual leaching of progressives to the still-segregationist Democrats, and the subsequent geographical re-orientation of the national parties, both so recently completed (and yes, Georgia is still into its first ever Lieutenant Governor).

Sanders and Trump, who if they shared this stage would have been older than any couple yet so close (more than twice as many adult years to Nixon-Kennedy in 1960, a debate often referred to for its groundbreaking superficiality, but which old George rightly pointed to as a seemingly lost era of policy and politeness, and now I will too) will affect the parties they selected - both of whom spurned them - long after they are gone. And though both may have fallen short in their ambitions - at least I hope I can say that, when the last ballot has been cast - they may be far more remembered, as well as memorable, than the institutions they rallied against, or that rallied them against themselves, than the guardians preaching their maintenance in the name of letting a lesser devil out of the box.

Such a journey, so little time. Lincoln, born on the same day as Charles Darwin; two great emancipators, though the fate of the Grand Old Party may lead one to instinctively reject the progress and optimism of Darwin's thesis.

Bryan, who consumed the Democratic Party in full - thrice nominated, never victorious, but the time that saw the then, since-forgotten Populist Party came to change existing parties beyond recognition.

Would anyone have believed it? Will you, the next time, or merely see a single step in a continuing journey? Who will succeed, who did lead?