The Democrats had a difficult start.
Secretary Clinton gave an interview to Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes. The choice of the journalist was objectionable, at the least. Pelley is an American version of Bernard-Henry Levy's unbearable mannerisms. He could be forgiven for his usual snobbish demeanor, although it is becoming frankly insufferable, but his targeted questioning felt stolen from a Republican House Benghazi Committee playbook.
Wikileaks (remember creepy Assange?) leaked documents indicating that the Democratic Party officials favored Secretary Clinton over Senator Sanders. A Russian involvement in hacking the Democrats should not come as a surprise, given Trump's Putinism and his campaign manager's Russian connections.
More serious is the split between the Sanders and the Clinton camps. Secretary Clinton's charm offence leaves the Sanders wing unconvinced for now. Only the President might bring the opposites once and for all together. Mrs. Obama gave this difficult rapprochement a first push. Michelle Obama is just formidable as a woman, a mother, a partner, a miracle who is loved for her fashion sense and her sophisticated spontaneity, admired by the intelligentsia and by the simple women and men from Main street.
Trump has created a real fault-line in the American psyche. Observers underestimate both his range and his ability to focus on what is important by way of what is incoherent. Part of America is hooked on fast slogans, slow intelligence and primary impulse. The Republican nominee plays on insecurity and frustration. He is an illusionist, suffering from an egomaniac
persona.
The Utopian Left in the Sanders camp is lost. At the end of a long day, the progressive more moderate Sanders supporters will back Mrs. Clinton. Speakers like Presidents Obama and Clinton will play an essential role in uniting the party. Senator Sanders is behaving like a gentleman, by the way. He has to be applauded for having been the man with ideas, some excellent, some "retro-nostalgic". He was the real man of "change".
It looks as if the Democrats can still come together. Mrs. Clinton's win over Trump would be a history changer, a positive alternative compared to the Republican mantra of isolationism, negativism and exclusion.
I bet that the emotion felt by most Thursday will loom larger than the opposition of a few... To
quote Michel Hoellebecq in Les particules elementaires " Demain sera feminin ".
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