The Economist 20161001 ed79b8

12 Leaders The Economist October 1st 2016
Election 2016
Lessons of the debate
The first presidential debate underlined how much Donald Trump diverges from long-held Republican ideals
MUCH analysis of the first
presidential debate between
Donald Trump and Hillary
Clinton focused on Mr
Trump’s boorishness. Mrs Clinton
accused him of having
called a beauty queen “Miss
Piggy”. Mr Trump explained the
next day that the lady in question had “gained a massive
amount of weight”. No one in the audience, which included
85m Americans and many others around the world, was reminded
ofthe Lincoln-Douglas debates.
The evening did underline, however, vast differences of
substance between the two candidates. On policy, Mrs Clinton
is solidly within the mainstream of the Democratic Party
and not much different from her predecessor. Mr Trump represents
something completely new for the Republican Party, as a
comparison of his performance on September 26th with the
arguments made by Mitt Romney in the debates fouryears ago
makes clear.
In 2012 the Republican nominee chided Barack Obama for
his naive attempts to reset relations with Russia, suggesting
that Mr Obama had been conned by an ex-KGB spy. In 2016 the
Republican nominee praises Vladimir Putin, even as Russian
planes rain death on Syria, and reckons that the FBI is mistaken
when it suggests that Russian hackers targeted the Democratic
National Committee’s computers. In 2012 the Republican
nominee was a strong supporter of trade with Mexico and
Canada, and hoped to pursue more free-trade deals. In 2016
the Republican nominee calls NAFTA “the worst trade deal
maybe ever signed anywhere”, and chides unpatriotic American
firms for moving jobs to Mexico. Mr Romney fretted about
the national debt; Mr Trump would send it soaring.
Four years ago, Mr Romney was thought to have made a
costly mistake when he dismissed the 47% of Americans who
pay no federal income tax as moochers. Mr Trump boasted
about his skill in reducing his tax bill (“That makes me smart”).
After Mr Romney lost the election in 2012, some Republican
strategists concluded that he had seemed too much like a CEO.
In the first debate, Mr Trump gave a class on his company’s finances
(“I’m extremely under-leveraged”), on its terrific assets
and why he sometimes didn’t pay contractors (see Lexington).
Until this year, a conservative record on questions of faith
and personal morality was a prerequisite for winning the Republican
nomination. During the 2012 primaries there was
speculation about whether Mr Romney’s quiet Mormon faith
would put off such values voters. In 2016 this has all been
erased. When Mr Trump divorced the first of his three wives,
Ivana, he let the New York tabloids know that one reason for
the separation was that her breast implants felt all wrong.
Wanted: any good ideas
Just over a month from the election is a good time to wonder
why the Republican Party has a nominee who has abandoned
so many conservative ideas and trampled over conservative
values. One charitable interpretation is that everything can be
explained by Mr Trump’s fame and charisma, which enable
him to tap into a deep vein of voter vitriol against established
politicians and give him permission to do and say things that
other candidates cannot. Another is that, for some Republicans,
hatred of Mrs Clinton has become more important than
any idea or principle. Most simply, this election has laid bare
the party’s intellectual exhaustion. Conservative leaders have
spent years draping a tired tax-cutting agenda in populist slogans.
Now a true populist has taken charge, and party grandees
can only hope he does not mean all that he says. It is a
stunning shift. And it matters. Presidential elections, unlike
beauty contests, have consequences. 7
The war in Syria
Grozny rules in Aleppo
Why the West must protect the people ofSyria, and stand up to VladimirPutin
JUST when it seems that the exportingthe scorched-earth methods that he once used to terrify
the Chechen capital, Grozny, into submission. Such sav-
war in Syria cannot get any
worse, it does. On September agery will not halt jihadism, but stoke it. And American inaction
19th Syrian and Russian planes
makes it all worse. The agony of Syria is the biggest
struck a convoy about to deliver moral stain on Barack Obama’s presidency. And the chaos rippling
aid to besieged parts of Aleppo.
from Syria—where many now turn to al-Qaeda, not the
The attack wrecked the ceasefire West, for salvation—is his greatest geopolitical failure.
brokered by America and Russia,
Mr Obama thinks that resolutely keeping out of the Syrian
and was followed by the worst bombardment that the an-
quagmire is cold, rational statesmanship. He may be “haunt-
cient city has yet seen. Reports speak of bunker-buster, incendiary
ed” by the atrocities, but is convinced there is nothing he can
and white phosphorus bombs raining down.
usefully do. “Was there some move that is beyond what was
Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, is destroying his country beingpresented to me that maybe a Churchill could have seen,
to cling to power. And Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is or an Eisenhower might have figured out?” Mr Obama mused 1