This election isn’t just Democrat vs. Republican. It’s normal vs. abnormal.
Updated by • Ezra Klein • @ezraklein •Jul 28, 2016, 11:29p
What we just witnessed in Cleveland and Philadelphia defies our normal political vocabulary. We are used to speaking of American politics as split between the two major parties. It’s Democrats versus Republicans, liberals versus conservatives, left versus right.
But not this election. The conventions showed that this is something different. This campaign is not merely a choice between the Democratic and Republican parties, but between a normal political party and an abnormal one.
The Democratic Party’s convention was a normal political party’s convention. The party nominated Hillary Clinton, a longtime party member with deep experience in government. Clinton was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, the runner-up in the primary. Barack Obama, the sitting president, spoke in favor of Clinton. Various Democratic luminaries gave speeches endorsing Clinton by name. The assembled speakers criticized the other party’s nominee, arguing that he would be a bad president and should be defeated at the polls.
That isn’t to say that Democrats didn’t show divisions or expose fault lines. They did. Political parties are chaotic things. The Democratic Party’s primary was unusually bitter, and listening to the loud "boos" of Sanders’s most committed supporters, there’s real reason to wonder whether Democrats will fracture in coming years. But for now, the Democrats nominated a normal candidate, held a normal convention, and remain a normal political party. Republicans held an abnormal convention and nominated an abnormal candidate
The Republican Party’s convention was not a normal political party’s convention. The party nominated Donald Trump, a new member with literally no experience in government. Ted Cruz, the runner-up in the primary, gave a primetime speech in which he refused to endorse Trump, and instead told Americans to "vote your conscience."
The Republican Party’s two living presidents, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, declined to endorse Trump or attend the convention. The party’s previous two presidential nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain, declined to endorse Trump or attend the convention. The assembled speakers — including Chris Christie, a prospective attorney general — argued that the other party’s nominee was a criminal who should be thrown in jail.
Even the normal parts of the convention felt abnormal. The prospective first lady’s speech included a passage plagiarized from the Democratic Party’s first lady. Trump counterprogrammed the first night of his own convention by doing a phone interview with Fox News and an hour-long discussion with the Golf Channel. He distracted from his running mate’s acceptance speech by telling the New York Times he would not automatically honor America’s commitments under the NATO treaty. Trump’s speech was enthusiastically endorsed by David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. "Couldn’t have said it better," he tweeted. Trump’s post-convention was even worse
The strangeness didn’t end with the convention. The next day — the very next day! — Trump gave a press conference in which he said Ted Cruz’s father was likely involved in the assassination of JFK, swore he wouldn’t accept Cruz’s endorsement even if it were offered, and argued that the National Enquirer deserved a Pulitzer Prize. It was one of the strangest and most self-destructive political performances in recent memory. The conservative Weekly Standard was left agog. The Republican Party’s nominee, Stephen Hayes wrote, "is not of sound mind."
Then, befitting the dignity we expect in our presidential aspirants, the Republican Party’s nominee spent his week live-tweeting the Democratic Party’s convention, with deep, thoughtful commentary like:
The invention of email has proven to be a very bad thing for Crooked Hillary in that it has proven her to be both incompetent and a liar! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016
And:
Elizabeth Warren, often referred to as Pocahontas, just misrepresented me and spoke glowingly about Crooked Hillary, who she always hated! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016
He followed that up with a press conference at which he blasted the job Tim Kaine had done in … New Jersey? Of course, Kaine was the governor of Virginia. Trump seems to have literally confused the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee with Tom Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey.
Unwilling to stop there, Trump went on to comment on the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s emails, which most experts think was conducted by Russia. "Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing — I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press," he said.
Let’s stop there for a second: Donald Trump went out and asked a foreign government to conduct cyber espionage in order to help his campaign. His supporters initially tried to laugh it off as an ad-libbed joke, but then Trump tweeted the same thing. This came only hours after his running mate, Mike Pence, had warned of "serious consequences" if Russia truly was behind the DNC hack.
None of this is normal.
A new cleavage in American politics: normal versus abnormal
America’s main political cleavage is between the Democratic and Republican parties. That split has meant different things at different times, but in recent decades it primarily tracks an ideological disagreement: Democrats are the party of liberal policies; Republicans are the party of conservative policies.
But in this year’s presidential election, the difference is more fundamental than that: The Democratic Party is a normal political party that has nominated a normal presidential candidate, and the Republican Party has become an abnormal political party that has nominated an abnormal presidential candidate.
AI
