Fever Swamp: A Journey Through the Strange Neverland of the 2016 Presidential Race

by Richard North Patterson

  14. This was a stunning moment for all of us in attendance. In a gifted roster of memorialists, Biden evoked tears.

  15. As a reporter who has followed him remarked to me, at times Biden can seem “a click off.”

  16. McCarthy bragged that the hearings had dragged down her poll numbers by showing that she was “untrustable.” This tongue-tied blunder helped derail his bid to become Speaker of the House.

  17. One possible result would have been to fracture the party’s center-left, delivering a nomination to Bernie Sanders. Thus Biden’s legacy would have been a hitherto unimaginable Trump–Sanders race.

  18. Universal free tuition was at the heart of Sanders’s appeal to the young. Understandable. But many wondered whether it made social or fiscal sense for American taxpayers to send rich kids to college.

  19. One underreported story is the intense dislike for Sanders among many of his colleagues, often captured in epithets. One senator suggested to me that the only reason Sanders was not the most disliked senator was the existence of Ted Cruz. Ditto journalists, one of whom told me: “You can’t imagine what a relief it is to experience Bernie at a distance.”

  20. And Sanders surely knew it. Hence the call for a “political revolution” that, to all but his most fervent followers, was obviously fantastical in light of gerrymandering, polarization, and a widespread aversion to government.

  21. Given political polarization and the nature of Donald Trump, in a general election Sanders would have done far better than George McGovern. It is possible, if barely, to imagine President Bernie Sanders.

  22. This lesson dogged Jill Stein, limiting her prospects of garnering Sanders voters.

  23. One paragraph in, and I’m already going south. Rereading this piece, I feel horrified fascination at how far it went off the rails. It is yet more frustrating to know that my early assessment of the man himself was borne out by events.

  24. In the event, he drew a lot. One should never underrate the hatred of Hillary Clinton within the Republican base.

  25. This disinterest in learning became glaring, including in debate with Clinton.

  26. Forget “borderline.”

  27. If that. Throughout the campaign he was contradictory and incoherent on policy or issues.

  28. This is a key point. One big mistake I made was underrating the degree to which the media would enable him throughout the primary season.

  29. His GOP rivals never exploited this weakness. Clinton did.

  30. This was my biggest error: believing that the GOP establishment would put up more resistance than, say, the French Army in 1940. Fearful of alienating Trump’s supporters, the other candidates trashed their nearest rivals, imagining that The Donald would self-destruct. Instead, they killed one another off.

  31. Another serious mistake was underrating the degree to which Trump was channeling his followers’ deep resentment and alienation, cementing their unwavering loyalty. In the hermetically sealed world of the GOP primaries, this was enough. Not until after the primary season did his offenses begin to matter—though not to his millions of true believers.

  32. The dynamic established in this debate never changed, because Hillary Clinton never cracked. Her discipline and command of the issues proved to be an underrated asset.

  33. Driven largely by the email story, this problem persisted throughout her campaign, becoming a magnet for voter distrust.

  34. This aura of competence became Clinton’s version of “trust”—voters could trust her to be up to the job.

  35. By common consensus, this is the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott v. Sanford. And it is one of only a handful of decisions—Roe v. Wade being another—that became a persistent political issue.

  36. Here Bernie Sanders deserves considerable credit. His campaign was the one bright spot in a dismal and corrupting landscape.

  37. Mercer later became a key Trump supporter, instrumental in the shake-up that installed the extreme right-wing founder of Breitbart News, Stephen Bannon, as the head of Trump’s campaign.

  38. Along with ambition, the pursuit of soft money from billionaires is the one unifying explanation for Rubio’s shape shifting on multiple issues.

  39. This is not just Rubio’s problem. Cynically, the GOP has made unreasoning support of Benjamin Netanyahu a political wedge issue, distorting American foreign policy in the process.

  40. Despite Rubio’s efforts, Adelson remained neutral between Rubio and his wife’s ardent courtier, Ted Cruz.

  41. Including Donald Trump, who echoed James Inhofe in his fervent embrace of scientific ignorance. Trump has pledged to reverse Obama’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions while peddling extravagant nonsense about reviving the coal industry. To a depressing degree, his most fervent supporters have swallowed his biggest lies—furthering the damage he is doing to our politics.

  42. Throughout the primary season, the Republican debates seemed to take place in an alternative GOP universe. In debate, Sanders and Clinton argued about recognizable issues: trade, money in politics, regulation of Wall Street, income inequality, and the cost of higher education. But the Republicans seemed to be competing with each other in describing how badly Obama had ruined America. As much as anything, this captured the closed intellectual system in which the Republican base lived, and which helped to make Trump’s rise possible.

  43. Trump never retracted his false claim that crowds of Muslims in New Jersey had celebrated wildly after 9/11.

  44. What brought down Carson was that he sounded increasingly like a space alien, even in the interplanetary precincts of the GOP. Though he was never going to be president, the mere idea had seriocomic filmic possibilities.

  45. As always, Trump was inexcusable. Still, I must admit that, for me, Fiorina’s overall demeanor evoked the scary Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

  46. One of Rubio’s fatal flaws was his transcendent callowness. He seemed even younger than he looked—which is younger than he is.

  47. After Trump co-opted him, it was Christie who looked traumatized whenever standing next to The Donald.

  48. Clearly so, as evidenced by Bush’s refusal to endorse Trump after he left the race.

  49. One must include this burgeoning social tragedy as a factor spurring struggling white Americans to rally behind Trump.

  50. The persistence of the GOP’s “zombie economics” owes less to logic than to the power of its donor class.

  51. At this point, it was hard to find Trump’s economic program. But eventually he proposed tax rates that would add a staggering $4 trillion to the deficit.

  52. Trump is a believer in self-help. If you credit his claim to be worth $10 billion, his proposed abolition of the estate tax would have been a $4 billion gift to his heirs.

  53. After Trump became the GOP front-runner for president, the Koch’s focused their largesse on trying to help Republicans keep control of the Senate.

  54. True enough. Trump eventually adopted the GOP’s discredited tax cut dogma so beloved by its donors.

  55. More massacres followed, including in Brussels and Orlando. In the primaries, this wound up helping Trump, whose vapid posturing was taken for “strength.”

  56. At this point I thought Cruz might stop Trump in the South. But the defection of evangelicals to Trump gave us a revealing new slant on their motivations.

  57. Trump’s disregard for truth has, regrettably, overshadowed Cruz’s gifts in this area.

  58. Nothing captures Cruz’s hypocrisy—and misguided strategy—better than his cynical embrace of Trump. Cruz thought he would inherit Trump’s followers once The Donald imploded. Instead Trump and his followers swallowed Cruz whole.

  59. Wrong. A big part of the reason is that Cruz didn’t try to take Trump down until it was too late.

  60. Again, one must not forget that, as a demagogue, Cruz is competitive with Trump.

  61. It will be interesting to see whether Cruz mounts a primary challenge against Trump in 20
20. Certainly, he will still be waiting for Trump to implode.

  62. It says something about Republican politics that the leading contestants in 2016 were such alarming characters. The difference between Trump and Cruz is that the latter is sufficiently sane that one can locate his behaviors on the map of political calculation. By comparison, much of Trump’s behavior during the campaign seemed less strategic than symptomatic of a mind prone to solipsism and impulsiveness.

  63. This is where Trump bested Cruz—instead of embracing the programs of the donor classes, he became the middle finger of restive blue-collar whites.

  64. Wrong again—because Cruz bet that Trump would self-destruct without his help. Trump’s most strenuous efforts at self-immolation did not occur until after he won the nomination.

  65. This was always the problem: in the angry precincts of the GOP, no one else had a path to victory.

  66. In early February, Cruz won Iowa handily, surprising Trump and fortifying his candidacy.

  67. For the Republican base, it turned out, ignorant bellicosity was as intoxicating to hear as it was for Trump to spout. That proved to be enough to buoy a mindless draft-evader who asserted that “I know more than the generals.” Even George Armstrong Custer was whirling in his grave.

  68. To say the least. Down the road, Gail Collins would call Rubio “an annoying twit.”

  69. Which turned out to be true. After Trump decimated him in Florida, Rubio dropped out, and then, reversing himself, ran for reelection to the Senate.

  70. In fact, what Hart told me in the fall was that Bush would “never happen.” After New Hampshire, the truth of this prediction was clear.

  71. Kasich lasted longer than some thought. Rumor has it that pressure from Reince Priebus forced him from the race. By early May, Priebus had become a “Vichy Republican,” intent on giving Trump a glide path to the nomination.

  72. In the end, Trump virtually swept the South.

  73. Cruz went to New Hampshire—in retrospect, a mistake.

  74. They did. But too late, with too little money, without supporting a specific alternative.

  75. This kept the Republican establishment frozen in place.

  76. Proof that racism within the GOP did not originate with Trump, and will not follow him out the door.

  77. Within the Republican base, all of these delusions persist.

  78. As noted, Cruz won Iowa handily—Canadian or no.

  79. Cruz, of course, survived Trump’s birther attack with nary a scratch. Proving the birtherism directed at Obama was not an issue, but a symptom.

  80. Cruz’s victory in Iowa eight days before had made him the leading challenger to Trump.

  81. Apparently unable to frame a responsive answer to a debate moderator’s questions, Rubio four times repeated—virtually word for word—an inane attack on President Obama. This confirmed the widespread view that Rubio was a shallow poseur programmed to recite prepackaged talking points, an astonishing act of self-immolation underscored by an instantaneous and withering takedown by Chris Christie. In the history of political debates, one struggles to recall a more devastating flameout.

  82. In due course, the man became a shill for Trump on talk shows and spearheaded a pro-Trump super PAC, proving, for those who are so inclined, that one can never be too cynical about the political classes.

  83. One of the most telling features of the GOP race was that experience counted for nothing—let alone sane policy positions. This confirmed the restiveness and alienation of the Republican base.

  84. After the conventions, the larger electorate began imagining all these things. Like hanging, a general election tends to concentrate the national mind.

  85. A modest word, it later emerged, for a proudly predatory serial groper for whom consent was irrelevant. Each new account of his conduct raised nauseating images of a panting, orange-haired, emotionally barren sexual aggressor.

  86. In the end, this obvious disassociation from voters helped to drag Cruz down. Trump never cared about them either, but he was better at channeling their anxieties and outrage.

  87. At times, the comical ferocity of Rubio’s attacks on Obama evoked a Chihuahua yipping through a screen door.

  88. One was left to wonder whether helplessly chattering the same phrases over and over was a symptom of too many months in the fever swamp. In any case, this indelible moment proved to be Rubio’s undoing as a credible candidate. After New Hampshire, he lost primary after primary, and donors fell away. He had become a political nowhere man, trudging inexorably toward failure.

  89. The deeper shame of his attack on Obama for speaking to American Muslims at a mosque is that, coming from Rubio, it was no surprise.

  90. Here, at least, Rubio was a leader, providing a template for Republicans who wish to dodge the question of climate change.

  91. The single smartest thing Trump did during the primary season was to release a list of right-wing prospective appointees. This helped cement the support of many conservatives, including those who otherwise despised him, and helped win over wavering Republicans in the fall.

  92. Had there been a Republican majority in Congress, the Ledbetter decision would remain in force.

  93. At the time, this judicial hijacking was widely noted by commentators like Jeffrey Toobin. The resulting damage to the Court’s reputation may be one reason why Roberts chose not to comprehensively gut Obamacare. It is one thing for justices to function as political partisans; another, perhaps, when this becomes too obvious.

  94. A great deal of damage has already been done. Routinely, presidential candidates promise to appoint justices who undo unpopular decisions, whether Roe v. Wade or Citizens United. It is equally routine in politically charged cases for the media to report whether a Republican or Democratic president appointed the judges in question. As a result, the credibility of our justice system has seriously eroded.

  95. By this time, I had begun to appreciate a persistent phenomenon: among Trump’s most fervent followers, no statement, however grotesque, could shake their support. The many analysts who had previously forecast Trump’s demise in the primaries—including me in early October 2015—failed to foresee this. Even the revelation in October 2016 that Trump had allegedly assaulted numerous women—and was videotaped bragging about such practices—didn’t seem to alienate his base.

  96. This process blossomed after Trump clinched the nomination, weakening him as a general election candidate.

  97. In the fall, Clinton did just that, showing a perfect grasp of the warped and vulnerable psyche beneath Trump’s protective coating of insults and self-adoration.

  98. At this point almost all the primaries lay ahead. But the disarray of Trump’s opponents, and of the party itself, had become apparent. In essence, they were allowing a wholly unqualified candidate to complete a hostile takeover.

  99. Like many others, Cruz assumed that the evangelicals would be his rock of ages. The Super Tuesday primaries in the South exposed that as a myth.

  100. As noted, Cruz’s most persistent failure was his inability to impersonate an actual human being. This casts more than a little shade on his prospects of ever becoming president.

  101. Months later it emerged that Trump—if not guilty of tax fraud—had likely paid little or no income tax for a couple of decades. But it is dubious that this would have hurt him among the government-phobic legions of the GOP—in fact, it might have polished his image as their surrogate shark.

  102. To his sorrow, Christie learned that Trump’s capacity for gratitude is, shall we say, limited. His fateful decision to back Trump made him the poster child for public humiliation. By August he was reportedly fetching Big Macs for The Donald and privately expressing his disenchantment to the media.

  103. Like Cruz, Rubio became damaged goods as a presidential aspirant. His year was 2016, when he was a bright and shiny new object.

  104. That the GOP establishment—donors, professionals, and officeholders—did not back Kasich confirmed its
bankruptcy.

  105. As it happened, Trump swept pretty much everything but Texas.

  106. Cruz won, allowing him to hang in by a thread.

  107. Kasich survived. Rubio did not.

  108. With Rubio out, Cruz was left trying to beat Trump in mid-Atlantic and northeastern states, where his hard-line evangelical pitch never had a prayer.

  109. One struggled for fresh metaphors to capture the GOP’s debacle. By the time I wrote this, the race was effectively over. Only the commentariat kept it alive, struggling to feed the perpetual news cycle.

  110. Trump won both, further deflating Cruz and Kasich.