Again none of this is to say that Trump even comes close to being a better candidate. He is manifestly unfit for public office. But one has to wonder how a candidate like this got as far as he did. The revulsion with elites in politics showing little interest in anything other than their own personal opportunity is something I have been seeing for years, addressed in both my 2009 book, Shadow Elite, and my 2014 Unaccountable, now out in paperback. The Clintons are two players who have served to undermine the public trust in subtle ways, and there are countless more. The public knows it, as I argued in that 2014 book; little did I know just how far their revolt would take us.
JB: Thank you for this very thorough introduction to the subject, Janine. Apparently, Clinton has a high-level mole in place, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who has been feeding the campaign updates regarding the ongoing investigation. If this is true, what do we do with that knowledge? Is this typical candidate campaign behavior? What does this say about the DoJ?
JW: I'm afraid I don't have any information or special insight into this.
JB: Fair enough. Bottom line: Are we truly between and a hard place? How about a protest vote for one of the third party candidates?
JW: While I understand the impetus for a protest vote, I think we all need to bear in mind the disastrous implications of a Trump presidency - not only in terms of its likely devastating effects on our democracy but its consequences for the rest of the world. A protest vote may be a luxury we simply shouldn't afford ourselves. Way too much is at stake.
JB: Thanks so much for talking with me, Janine. It remains to be seen if undecided voters will see things this way. Only time will tell.
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Wedel's latest book: UNACCOUNTABLE: How the Establishment Corrupted our Finances, Freedom and Politics and Created an Outsider Class (Pegasus, updated paperback, October 2016), http://janinewedel.info/UNACCOUNTABLEdescription.pdf Unaccountable was named in Bloomberg's survey of 2014 favorite reads.
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