Who do you see as the Democratic front runner in 2020?
A2A:there are still a couple of years before the real action in the primaries begins, so it’s really premature to say (or even care) who the current front-runner is. I think back to 1990 - or perhaps 2006 for a better analog. In 1990, the “smart” money was on guys like Lloyd Bentsen and Mario Cuomo - big names with long pedigrees, Neither even campaigned.In 2006, who thought Barack Obama would challenge - and topple, as it turned out - Hillary Clinton?The Republicans are a mess right now, but the Democratic party is in nearly as bad shape, as it struggles to come to grips with who its leaders actually are. It’s more difficult for the Democrats to coalesce, as they really are a party defined by coalitions of groups with little common political interests.Right now, the front-runners would have to include Bernie Sanders (who is old, male, and white, and not even a Democrat to be honest), Joe Biden (who is also old, white, and male, and must be kicking himself that he did not run in 2016), Kirsten Gillibrand (who appeals to the younger, female portion of the Democratic base, and has really worked overtime to define herself as essentially opposed to everything that Donald Trump does), and Cory Booker (an attractive, relatively progressive - but not stridently so - black man who is relatively young - he ticks many of the the boxes for the Democrats).Further down the list is Kamala Harris, the freshman senator from California who is black, a woman, and though not the progressive she would like you to believe (she was essentially placed into politics by Willie Brown, an extremely pragmatic, centrist, professional politician who ran California for decades), she can say all the right things that touch liberals’ political erogenous zones. But she has a very, very thin resume, and a lot of it (her claim to fame was as the California AG and before that, the San Francisco DA) means that where there is some substance to her career, it is a target-rich opportunity for her opponents nationally. I do not think that, after an amateur like Trump, the Democrats will go with someone with so little national experience.The point is this - right now, I strongly suspect that the person who will emerge as the person to beat in 2020 is not yet known or talked about yet. It will begin to become clear after the mid-terms in November.
Out of the two US presidential candidates which one do you think is worse, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?
Strange as it may sound, the question evokes in me a conflict between my gut and my heart. My gut reaction is the country is going into a period of anarchy where the better angels of our nature are betrayed and lost from sight. In that country, I suppose someone like Donald Trump is the better president, although I’m at a loss to say why.I don’t see Trump holding the country together, unifying or building. He seems intent on doing the exact opposite. I do see his movement as a reaction to the excesses of political correctness but for all the rhetoric, that seems trivial.Hillary I see as the president if I feel the country will last another hundred years. That there will be a United States to lead the world further in the directions of the Founders and the Age of Reason. That may sound opposite or obtuse to some who’ve internalized the rhetoric of Originalists, but I feel and think it’s accurate.The conflict between these two impressions sorrows me overall.