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Donald Trump: how reason got fired

Government is for the people, even conservative people. The Republicans forgot it, and Trump is the consequence that they will have to live with, whether he loses—or wins...

by Sam Tanenhaus / October 11, 2016 / Leave a comment
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Published in November 2016 issue of Prospect Magazine
American drinkers reveal their mood to the candidates ©Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

American drinkers reveal their mood to the candidates ©Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Click here to read more from our November 2016  issue

Scroll to the bottom to read an update from Tanenhaus on “Trump Tapes” 

Politicians are famous for their memories, which are remarkably detailed, especially when it comes to names and faces, places and dates. But that gift necessitates another, just as important: the gift of forgetting. How much our politicians would rather not remember—defeats, mistakes, embarrassments, not to mention crimes and misdemeanours, malfeasances great and small. Ask Hillary Clinton (the private email server!) or Donald Trump (the “birther” controversy! the tax returns!) Rather, don’t ask them. And please, don’t ask the two parties stuck with these two battered candidates till the Doomsday moment on 8th November, which could well lead to even darker days.

If Clinton wins and Republicans hold onto the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate, Republican legislators, embittered by a third straight presidential defeat, may well announce a formal investigation of Clinton regarding her private email server usage even before she takes the oath of office, the first step in a long siege whose goal will be 2020. And if Trump wins?

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Comments

  1. Alyson
    November 4, 2016 at 21:07
    Donald Trump the birther issue? More like the 12 year old, or the 13 year old who us due to testify in December that he raped her when she was a child model, or all the bankruptcies, or tax evasions, or debts he owes in China, Saudi Arabia or Russia? Or why he was expelled from school? Never was there any presidential candidate with such potential to be blackmailed by those who would put his hand to sign what they require. Is this the leader that world chooses today? What does that say about the rest of us?
  2. JamesG
    November 5, 2016 at 14:47
    "Update: With less than 30 days to go, and Donald Trump’s campaign apparently now in free fall ... "I love found humor.

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About this author

Sam Tanenhaus
Sam Tanenhaus is Prospect's US Writer-at-Large
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