The US electoral circus update

After sitting through the Republican convention last week, Thomas Frank, a liberal Democrat hotshot, concluded that the remnant of the Republican Party led by Donald Trump is radically different from all the pro-multinational corporations and military industrial complex types like Bush, Romney, and Clinton – and from the Tea Party-ists who fantasise that their tax money all goes on aid to foreigners and poor people.

The Trumpets reckon big businesses, other than Trump’s, suck, ”free trade” is a rip-off by global corps, sick people should have doctors and nurses, big banks should be broken up, workers should have paid daycare, and who cares which toilets you go to.

Frank also described Trump himself as “an altogether different monster” who’s a bigot, racist, global-warming denying, hypocritical, untrustworthy, authoritarian, predatory businessman and a thrice-married vulgarian – all of which is true, plus he’s staggeringly ignorant, and a psychotic bully.

Frank sounds the alarm that the Clinton Democrats haven’t registered that the Dem-Repub consensus for America-rules-the-world-for-corporate-profit has at last been scuttled, not by the sensible Bernie Sanders but by the loonytunes Trump.

Meanwhile, prestigious New Yorker editor Ryan Lizza just published a story echoing my piece last month, about how Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party could win enough votes to throw the whole election into a different kind of chaos. Stay tuned.