Unelectable Sanders would be an easy opponent for Team Trump

It’s one of those special weeks in American politics when prediction becomes little better than guesswork, and when anticipating “what comes next” amounts to the proverbial gazing through a glass darkly.

Stateside, politics normally grind so slowly that there’s rarely much chance of a surprise. Take the biorhythms of the Democratic nomination. Buttigieg predictably rose and Buttigieg predictably fell. The rise of Bernie Sanders was as expected as the decline of Elizabeth Warren once she tried to poleaxe his career with a spot of identity politics. Accusing him of misogyny on the debate stage now doesn’t seem so clever, but did anybody really believe that people would buy into so public a hit in the first place? You’d have thought she’d have learned her lesson from watching Kamala Harris’ campaign nosedive after the whole Biden “busing” row. Both were cheap shots and both candidates deservedly paid a price.

By conventional logic, then, Bernie’s rise should be followed by a dip as liberal pundits turn their scrutiny to Sanders and his fiscally ambitious (substitute: crazy) plans. The party has every reason to block Sanders path to the nomination. He’s not simply a threat to the DNC (he even boasts as much to his adoring crowds) but to the chances of a Democrat winning the November election. There’s a reason Trump is talking Bernie up and it’s not because of his electability.

Yet, at the same time, that there “should be a dip” doesn’t mean a dip is certain. This is a special week, remember? We’re too close to the business end of the nomination process and Monday will see the Iowa caucus, which will cut across the normal rhythms of the campaign. This is our first chance to see how well the polls translate into electoral preferences.

There’s a different kind of logic that begins once some real results start to come in. Positions solidify and trends harden. If Sanders does well, he gathers momentum into the subsequent primaries on the 11th, 22nd, and 29th. Individually, these four ballots account for only 155 delegates but they represent an early chance to prove a candidate’s viability going into the so-called “Super Tuesday” on 3rd March when 15 states and 1,344 delegates are up for grabs.

Sanders could, by then, be the candidate for the progressive wing, further collapsing Warren’s support. Meanwhile, in the moderate end of the voter pool, Joe Biden continues to keep his candidacy afloat, maintaining a kind of neutral buoyancy that manages to be both reassuring yet not exactly convincing. He must prove himself before Mike Bloomberg properly enters the race on Super Tuesday. Bernie loyalists might argue otherwise, but it’s Biden and Bloomberg who voters see as the best chance of Democrats defeating Trump. If, that is, Trump is still the candidate…

Back in Washington, Trump’s acquittal remains likely but this week’s revelations about the contents of John Bolton’s new book make it impossible to say when that acquittal will come. Senators will vote on Friday to decide if the trial will include witnesses but, late Tuesday, it was reported that the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, still doesn’t have enough votes to end the trial quickly.

That should worry the White House. Thus far, the trial has been a lamentable demonstration of why people tend to distrust lawyers and that peculiar kind of American lawyering in which money buys convoluted argument. Democrats have made many missteps along the way (Adam Schiff’s transcript parody, Al Green’s impeachment obsession) but, before the Senate, the House managers presented a case that has been almost entirely limited to the facts.

In response, Donald Trump’s legal team managed a small miracle: filling ten hours of their allotted twenty-four, constructing a defence out of airy nothings. Ken Starr, the man who turned an investigation into Bill Clinton’s finances into a lurid 453-page report on Clinton’s sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, loftily lamented that we’re now living in “the age of the impeachments”.

Then there was Pam Bondi, the recipient of a $25,000 donation from Trump when she was Florida Attorney General (and then withdrew from their case against Trump University) lecturing on the Bidens and corruption. Lastly came 81-year-old Alan Dershowitz arguing a line of reasoning that probably no other lawyer in America would make. The whole thing was held together by Trump’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, a gifted lawyer but of that breed who seek to blind a jury with the gleam of their cufflinks. “Smooth” is not a smooth enough word to describe Sekulow.

The trial had been designed in a way to give Republican senators an excuse to acquit quickly before they needed to examine evidence or hear testimony. It might still work but with polls now suggesting that three-quarters of Americans want to hear from those witnesses, a quick conclusion threatens greater peril and even greater cynicism towards America’s struggling democracy.