Clinton’s Replacement

Why does the possibility of Hillary Clinton being replaced change nothing? Because this would be just one possible outcome of an inevitably bad scenario.

What bad (devastating, really) scenario are we talking about? The Democrats are now in a situation where an unhappy ending is expected, and where practically every possible action is being calculated with the hope of achieving at least some small victory (such as a serious defeat for the opposition).

The chances of this are still zero, but giving up is not an option; just imagine the possibilities.

1. Clinton stays in the race (she's addicted to success). Everyone already understands why this is bad. The question of her health will shut down all her other messages and weigh her down.

They'll finish her off at the debates on Sept. 26, Oct. 9 and Oct. 19.

Until now, with the real face-off still ahead, it's been fine for Clinton just to broadcast her monologues. But at the debates, she'll be stuck with that predatory animal on live TV (it's already obvious that Trump will tear her to pieces).

Americans love to watch stuff like that. Battles get very high ratings, dangerously high. To abstain from the debates citing illness would be the worst of all options. Clinton's chances would go completely down the drain in the eyes of her supporters.

2. Clinton is replaced by another candidate. This would already be a serious defeat and source of demoralization for Clinton's supporters. It's unclear how anyone could even try to justify it. The replacement (who might ironically be called her "shift relief") would inherit all of Clinton's bad karma.

Sponsors and the press elites would throw in the towel, smelling defeat in the air. Well, unless Leonardo DiCaprio steps in, against whom Trump would definitely lose.

Replacing Clinton would mean that the momentum and repositioning of the entire campaign would go to waste.

"Hello everyone, I'm Clinton's replacement. Oh, you haven't gotten to know me yet? Well, I agree with her on these points, but not on those. Here's my position on Trump. And by the way, listen to what I personally, have in mind: maybe I'll be your next president."

Who would have time to take that all in?

We'd be starting from a really bad spot. Rebranding the campaign visually wouldn't even be worth the effort. A whole year has already been spent promoting Hillary.

Across the country they'd have to replace (and print) millions of T-shirts, flags, stickers, buttons and baseball caps. If these things weren’t changed, they'd remind everyone of defeat and distract them from the new candidate. How and with what funding would they manage to do that. And how much energy would that divert from the campaign?

Replacing any candidate would cause major problems.

As we know from ingenious election analysis, supporters wouldn't automatically come over to a new hero's side just because they'd been asked to. They'd refuse on account of ideological and aesthetic biases. Therefore, the resources that strengthened Clinton wouldn't transfer over to her replacement.

Moreover, Clinton's supporters would still argue with the replacement's fans and propose their own candidate ("You aren't following Clinton's line closely enough. Why don't you go on and just do what we want?"). Amid these conflicts, supporters would fall into even greater disarray, miserably waving their hands. An avalanche of Democratic support would dissolve into atoms and particles.

The most interesting outcome, although the craziest, would be to replace Clinton with the insane professor Sanders, the man Clinton and her supporters viciously crushed not so long ago.

Bernie would be able to start playing his own game and setting his special kind of fire right away. Just cross out the whole Clinton campaign. Sanders and the Democratic supporters would start yelling at each other ("What the heck are you doing?! Be the vile sharks of untamed capitalism you are and stop getting in my way").

Would Trump be able to adapt his strategy to a new opponent?

This wouldn't be too difficult with Clinton's sins hanging around the replacement's neck (just try to justify them).

What's more, the general mood would be one in which they'd be feverishly trying to catch up with Trump. And the closer we'd get to the election, the stronger the feeling would be that Trump had already won.

Either way, this means that a week before the election on Nov. 8, the Democrats will be coming to terms with their defeat psychologically and thinking about how to live with their new unpleasant reality.