United States 2016: Could the Unthinkable Happen?

In the Democratic corner, we have the socialist senator, Bernie Sanders. In the Republican corner, we have the extraordinary rabble-rouser, Donald Trump. And weaving between them, making an unprecedented move in the United States, is the progressive billionaire and former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who if elected, would become the first president in the 240 years since the American revolution to be elected outside the two-party structure that normally crushes everything.

Less than 10 months away from the American presidential election, we have a scenario that remains unlikely, but which is now becoming imaginable.

Is 2016 the year of the unthinkable in the United States? The year of a real Social Democratic candidate in a country that has been allergic to socialism since the dawn of time; the year when the Republican Party has been abandoned to a wealthy, rabid narcissist with fascist leanings, the ultimate consequence of the party’s dogmatic, anti-intellectual shift to the right; the year when, seizing the opportunity, an American centrist, even richer than the aforementioned narcissist, decides to break the deadlock in an unexpected arbitration of two extremes?

Evidence from a number of different sources indicates that what would “normally” happen naturally, perhaps, will not happen during this American electoral season.

And what about Trump’s unwavering success, seven months after he announced his candidacy? According to most experts, this should only have been a moment of madness during the weeks prior to the actual primaries, as after this, reason, particularly within the Republican establishment, would be restored, and he would be removed.

We have already seen such passing infatuations in the past. There is the example of extremist Pat Buchanan in 1996, or even the tea party movement — after the election of Barack Obama following his 2012 campaign — with radical reactionary surges during the Republican primaries. In the end, these surges had more success at the state or congressional level, and a number of such candidates were elected. However, in the end, they never managed to establish themselves in a presidential election.

The candidates who continued on to the next round, George W. Bush in 2000, then John McCain in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012, represented what could be called the “Republican establishment.”

This is not the case for Trump. Trump is not simply a loud-mouthed, vulgar candidate with a slightly more right-wing policy than the others. He is a circus freak, an egotist who transgresses all taboos, and who not only attacks the Democrats and the political establishment in general, but who also wants to bring the whole thing down, including the Republican Party. He is a monster who systematically feeds off the attacks against him and whose endurance after what will soon be eight months of campaigning has left everyone flabbergasted.

According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, the Trump phenomenon is the natural outcome of the Republican Party’s downward spiral over the past few years. And the famous survey analyst, Nate Silver (who almost predicted the results of the presidential election exactly), wrote last week, “I’m now much less skeptical of Trump’s chances of becoming the nominee,” when asked about the real possibility of Trump winning the Republican nomination.

On the surface, the dynamics are different, but the result there, too, is threatening for the “establishment” on the Democratic side.

The establishment refers to Hillary Clinton who, after her defeat in 2008 in the race against Barack Obama, is trying her luck at winning the presidency one last time. In the absence of a swarm of candidates like we see in the Republican Party, Clinton imagined that her conquest of the inauguration would be a simple formality, a prelude to the first election of a woman to the White House. At most, she considered the aged Bernie Sanders, a left-wing Vermont senator, as a nice foil during the primaries.

Alas! Sanders is set to win the New Hampshire primary at the beginning of February, and perhaps, even the Iowa caucus.* Polls say Bernie is catching up to Hillary in the national polls. All of a sudden, the reason that many people — not just the Republicans — hate Clinton is the fact that the scandals that have haunted her past are resurfacing. And what if…?

The latest news to date in Saturday’s New York Times reported that Michael Bloomberg is “seriously considering” running as an independent candidate, especially if these two big parties, against all odds, end up choosing the “extremist” outsiders Trump and Sanders.

This American election year could be full of surprises.

*Editor’s note: Hillary Clinton was declared the winner in the Feb. 1 Iowa caucus. The New Hampshire primary will take place Feb. 9.