Us politics

Did you think, after the second presidential TV debate last week, that democracy couldn’t sink lower? Well, think again. Tonight’s clash between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in Las Vegas — already dubbed ‘fight night’ — looks certain to mark a new low for civilised politics, and a new high for elections as trash entertainment. If you thought Trump and Clinton hurling insults about sex in the Townhall-style showdown in St Louis was grim, expect grimmer. If you thought Trump’s last pre-debate stunt of holding a press conference with the Clintons’ sex victim ‘accusers’ was silly, expect sillier. Trump appears to have all but given up on becoming president —

Donald Trump probably won the second presidential debate tonight, overall. But overall probably doesn’t matter. The clash between him and Hillary Clinton over the lewd sex-bragging tape will be what people talk about, and he did not come out well on that score. The Donald maybe did enough to stop the Republican Party deserting him en masse, but his campaign still looks like a disaster. Trump arguably lost the night before the debate began by putting on a typically surreal, car-crash-bad press conference with Bill and Hillary’s ‘accusers’ — women who claim to have been sexual victims of the Clintons’ iniquity — just before the debate began. It was a ridiculous stunt, which showed

The Donald Trump story and the Jeremy Corbyn story are same tale told by different countries. A political party reinvents itself in the 1990s, wins power, but then dishonestly drags its nation into a terrible war in Iraq. It becomes widely reviled. The party is still in power a few years later when the financial system collapses. The party takes desperate measures to keep the country’s economy going – rescuing failed banks – but that in turn leads to more unpopularity and distrust among the public. It loses power. In opposition, the party’s base – its core voters – starts to revolt. The party then loses another election. Then the party’s grassroots have a

The funniest thing about the lewd Donald Trump tape is how unshocking it is. It’s less of an ‘October surprise’ more of an ‘October of course’. Everybody who knows anything about Trump knows that he is, to use a Donald favoured word, braggadocious about his sexual exploits. The newly unearthed video of him boasting of his sexual misadventures is embarrassing for him, of course, but it’s not much worse than what he said in his interviews with Howard Stern, which has been extensively reported. It will hurt his chances with women voters, and of course grumpy Republicans are using the story as an excuse to try another coup against him,

Welcome to The Spectator’s US Election 2016 site, brought to you in association with City Index. This will be home to the best British coverage of the biggest, maddest and baddest political event of the year. There has been no shortage of British coverage of the race to the White House in recent months; the world is gripped by the Donald Trump phenomenon. What’s been lacking, however, is shrewd, detailed analysis of what is actually happening in the American body politic — apart from, that is, on the pages on The Spectator. We’ve been the only British magazine to cover both Trump and Clinton intelligently and humorously. As far back as August

Governor Mike Pence can debate — who knew? Donald J Trump’s running mate has been fairly invisible so far this election — his star eclipsed by the great orange fireball that is Trump’s ego. But in last night’s vice-presidential debate, he shone. He was more political (in a good sense), more eloquent and more statesmanlike than his adversary. His performance was, in other words, the opposite of Trump’s in last week’s presidential debate. Tim Kaine, Hillary’s vice-presidential pick, didn’t do well. He seemed nervous and over-rehearsed: he fired off too many attack lines too quickly, and his tactic of always savaging Donald Trump rather than discussing the issues made him

Being Vice President of the US ranks as one of the worst jobs in the world. It comes with practically no power yet carries enough responsibility that it can kill your future career prospects. Cactus Jack Garner, the 32nd man to hold the post, famously described the position as ‘not worth a bucket of warm piss’. And they still have to work for it. Tonight we get to watch Tim Kaine, for the Democrats, and Mike Pence, for the Republicans, go head-to-head in the one – and only – vice presidential debate of the campaign. For 90 minutes, they’ll have to slug it out on live TV for the right to that

Monday night’s US presidential debate should convince a majority of American voters that Hillary Clinton is their only credible choice for the White House. Yet it may well fail to do so, in the new era of ‘post-truth politics’. The historian Sir Michael Howard suggests that on both sides of the Atlantic, we are witnessing a retreat from reason, an attempt to reverse the onset of the 18th-century Age of the Enlightenment, which banished superstition and religious faith as a basis for reaching conclusions. The progress of Donald Trump supports his thesis. I have just spent a fortnight in southern California, researching a book on the Vietnam war, and saw

Tonight’s first televised debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, on Long Island, New York, is expected to generate a ‘Super-Bowlesque’ audience. Analysts say that up to 112 million viewers could tune in, a figure that Donald Trump will interpret as an indication of his immense popularity. Even on this side of the Atlantic, a large number of people will stay up to the early hours (2am – 3.30am) to see the Donald versus Mrs C, such is the excitement surrounding the presidential election. So what can we expect? Here are six things to look out for: 1) Clinton will try so hard to appear healthy that she will end

Hillary Clinton hazarded that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are a ‘basket of deplorables’. The Kaiser called the BEF a ‘contemptible little army’, Aneurin Bevan called the Tories ‘lower than vermin’ — and in both cases, those so named took up the insult as a badge of pride: the Old Contemptibles, the Vermin Club. I hope the Deplorables will organise as such, and march on Washington in their millions. This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes. The full article is available here. 

What if Hillary Clinton can’t run? It’s a question that must be asked, even if the New York Times and much of the American mainstream media has been unwilling to ask it. Until now, that is. Clinton’s collapse – or ‘medical episode’ – during a 9/11 memorial service has brought the issue of her health to everybody’s attention. Americans will be asking themselves how, if she can’t make it through a memorial service, she will cope with the rigours of four years as Commander-in-chief. Moreover, the conspiracy of silence surrounding her health troubles does add to the general idea that the media and the Washington elite are willing to cover

Donald Trump’s ‘Summer Meltdown’ appears to be over. The latest CNN poll puts him two points ahead of Hillary Clinton, which must come as a surprise to the many pundits who have been saying ‘it’s over’ after Clinton’s polling improved over July and August, and the Donald’s deteriorated. It’s never been over. Hillary’s ‘Autumn Horror’ could be just beginning. How could this be — when every headline about the US election screams that Trump has taken his extremism too far? Well, as I wrote in the magazine last week, never underestimate the power of Hillary Hate, which is a national pastime in America. It waxes and wanes like a tide.

To say Donald Trump ‘double-downed’ last night on his border rhetoric would be an understatement. He went full anti-illegal immigration throttle, and then some. ‘There will be no amnesty,’ he said, and he promised to deport criminal illegal aliens within one hour of his arrival in office. ‘We will build a great wall along the southern border,’ he said. ‘And Mexico will pay for the wall, 100 per cent. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for it.’ He also invited on to the stage a group of women whose children have been killed by illegal immigrants, the ‘Angel Moms’ — a typical, mawkish Trumpian touch. ‘If you don’t vote Trump,

A subscription to The Spectator buys you more than just full access to the world’s greatest magazine. It also means a ticket to our subscriber-only events and debates, and our next one is in a few weeks: a debate about Clinton vs Trump, moderated by Andrew Neil, on Tuesday 18 October. Conrad Black, formerly publisher of The Spectator, will be making the case for voting Trump along with Bob Tyrell, founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. The FT’s Gideon Rachman will make the case for Hillary, joined by the playwright Bonnie Greer. It’s a pretty good line up: my hunch is that this one will sell out in a couple

When Donald Trump hired Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of the right-wing media site Breitbart, to head his campaign last week, Breitbart’s former editor Ben Shapiro declared, ‘The Breitbart alt-right just took over the GOP.’ Yet most of Trump’s supporters probably don’t even know what the alt-right is. It’s entirely plausible that Trump himself doesn’t know what it is. So what is the alt-right, and has it really taken over the GOP? Shapiro’s worry might be overstated but it’s not unwarranted. For at least a year, a small army of online right-wing trolls – who refer to themselves as the ‘alt-right’ – has attacked anyone who dared challenge Trump. They use some of the most