Politicians rise and fall but some cannot quit the stage. “There were plenty of people hoping that I, too, would disappear,” writes Hillary Clinton. “But here I am.” Mrs Clinton’s three-month global book tour is her bid at redemption. But her “autopsy tour” on what happened to her 2016 campaign will only deepen the split between the Democratic party’s pragmatic wing and those trying to reinvent it as a European-style socialist party. Mrs Clinton versus Bernie Sanders. Haven’t we seen this drama already?
Yes, but this is season two. We are also deep into the plot of the Republican civil war between the nativist populists, who are led by Stephen Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, and its establishment, whose agenda is tax cuts. Partisans might ask whose side Mr Trump is on. They will never find out. Sometimes he will throw a bone to the alt-right. At others he will sound like a business chamber Republican. In reality, Mr Trump supports a brand of one. Those in search of his philosophical core should start with the Bermuda Triangle.
There was a time when the US had two functioning parties. That is no longer the case. I can now count four. Since Mr Trump has no fixed membership, the tally has risen temporarily to five. In last year’s primaries, the right populist and left populist candidates, Mr Trump and Mr Sanders, took more than half of the votes between them. If that were translated into seats, America’s traditional two parties would be in a minority. The picture would be closer to Emmanuel Macron’s France, where the Gaullists and Socialists are on the sidelines.