For 50 years, in the United States, almost every election of a new president has meant a new return of the national political pendulum. Richard Nixon's murky presidency gave way - after Gerald Ford held office long enough to pardon his former boss - to Jimmy Carter's shrimp. Four years later Ronald Reagan broke in, followed by the first president of the baby boom generation , Bill Clinton, following the parenthesis of George HW Bush's unique mandate. Clinton, prosecuted and womanizer (but intelligent) was succeeded by Bush's son, George W., moral and anti-intellectual, who in turn gave way to that kind of Spock that was Barack Obama, before the pendulum swing, every Once again, it will reach the unprecedented extravagance of Donald Trump.
How is it going to be strange, then, that while the Democrats strive in the campaign to choose their candidate, the most extreme of all is the one who is winning? After the Nevada caucuses , Senator Bernie Sanders has more than just the wind in favor. It represents exactly the kind of partisan reaction against Trump that was to be expected and is another proof that the arc of the political pendulum is increasingly pronounced. Sanders, who has always declared himself a socialist and has never joined the Democratic Party, embodies the opposite of the current president, with his eighties style of greed.
Why has the arc of electoral oscillations in the US been enlarged so much? In other times, presidential candidates, to succeed, had to embrace hope and optimism. It was normal, because the richest country in the world had been upward for more than a century and enjoying its feverish American dream. When leaders deviated from that idea, in periods of difficulty (Carter and his discourse about discomfort), or were considered guilty of a temporary recession that did not fit optimistic expectations (Bush Sr.), the electorate showed them the door .
Then the new millennium arrived and the American century suffered three successive blows: the 9/11 terrorist attacks, poorly conceived wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the global financial crisis of 2008. Since the crisis, politicians have tried everything to boost the economic growth, because there is nothing that benefits everyone more. The US economy grew abnormally during the century after the Secession War, because life expectancy almost doubled and productivity soared, thanks to a series of discoveries and inventions (vaccines, antibiotics, electricity and microchips).
Trump has countless weaknesses, and many things can happen between now and November
The last 10 years have increased wealth inequalities to such an extent that many members of the middle class fell into that precipice and carried a wobbly faith in the American dream.
With that faith he also left, probably, any hope that a moderate Democrat could get the nomination in 2020. After all, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar speak much like Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin, symbols of an era that at the time seemed good, but today is considered the period in which jobs began to leave by globalization, average incomes stagnated and not only was a new plutocracy born but national leaders promoted it .
Demography, like gravity, is an almost immutable force. As much as the traditional sages of the Democratic Party try to convince voters that nominating Sanders will favor Trump's re-election, it gives the impression that most of the youth, immigrants and minorities of the party (the true future of the Democrats) disagrees. Surely they see in Sanders someone who convincingly appeals to lost hopes and wants to drastically change a system that no longer offers them a credible way to move forward. After all, why defend a status quo that leaves them indebted to the eyebrows, with precarious employment, with inadequate housing and about to be ruined by any medical emergency? The irony is that this powerful message is similar to Trump's call to disenchanted workers voters and allowed him to win the Republican nomination and the presidency in 2016.
The elections are full of uncertainty. Sanders could win them for many reasons. The country is divided almost in half whoever the candidate is, undecided voters are unpredictable, electoral math is complicated, Trump has innumerable weak points, and many things can happen from here to November.
Let's not forget that almost all political and market experts were wrong with the 2016 elections. Today, when the optimistic American spirit seems to be giving way to disappointment in both parties, Sanders' push is understandable and should not be underestimated.
Alexander Friedman is co-founder of Jackson Hole Economics, was executive director of Gam Investments, head of investments at UBS, chief financial officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Researcher at the White House.
© Project Syndicate, 2020.
Translation by María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia.
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