(La Próxima Presidenta – en español)

Hillary Clinton is likely to be the next President. Wishes aside, the current political alignments will make her a weak President. The Senate and the Congress are likely to remain under Republican control. In the case of the Congress, the Democrats will likely continue to obtain more votes than the Republicans but less, far less representatives because of the way districts have been drawn by conservatives.

This time, the control of the Congress and the Senate by the opposition will have special significance. First, Republicans will feel they were deprived of their turn to the Presidency by a chance outsider they considered to be a temporary phenomenon. They will work to destroy Hillary’s Presidency from the very beginning with very obstructionist measures. This is something they could not do successfully with Obama because in the beginning, he had the majority in both Chambers and was able to solidify some power. Second, Hillary will win with the support of several Republicans, including neo-conservatives who hate her domestic agenda. This support is fleeting and based on the distrust some Republicans have of Donald Trump, an unpredictable opportunist. After the elections, this support will be gone and Hillary will be the target. Third, Hillary will not be able to achieve any meaningful result in her domestic agenda, particularly the programmatic points agreed-upon with Bernie Sanders: deepening and extending Obamacare, eliminating tuitions in public universities, making child care available for working mothers, introducing a broad amnesty for undocumented immigrants, implementing an extensive public works program. Furthermore, increasing the income tax rates for the richest segments of the society to pay for the above-mentioned reforms will not be possible.  Fourth, in international policies, Hillary is likely to be to the right of President Obama, closer to hawkish Republicans. For example, judging by the positions she’s traditionally held, in disputes such as the ongoing one between the Pentagon and the State Department over US policies on Syria, Hillary is likely to side with the Pentagon. Therefore, Republicans will be in agreement with (most of) her international policies but will keep prudent distance to avoid paying any price for such support.   

Hillary Clinton is likely to accommodate to Republicans’ demands in order to govern. In this realistic approach, she will imitate her husband’s when he lost control of Congress and Senate. At that time, Bill Clinton left behind progressive policies he had tried to implement at the beginning of his Presidency. In such circumstances, the support of Sanders’ followers and “millenniums” will evaporate totally. (It is pretty absent in the electoral campaign anyway.) Skepticism will prevail among the youth. However, if Sanders’ followers start a process of organization and demonstration as they promised they would, and join other groups with legitimate grievances such as the Black Lives Matter Movement, Hillary could be encouraged to press Congress and achieve some progress in her domestic agenda. An example of this is the so-called crime bill to reduce unfair incarcerations and protect minorities. Such a step is possible but unlikely. It would require a lot of organization and mobilization on the scale of Luther King’s march of one million people on the Washington Mall. Politicians are not fond of such demonstrations, particularly in the USA, and they typically look for ways to discourage and prevent them.

After a while, despite it’s recent gains, the distribution of incomes may deteriorate further, leaving some segments of the population more alienated. The international political climate will, in the best case, continue to be complicated, and in many cases worsen. Even for the most powerful country, the problems of the world are extremely complex and no country is powerful enough to solve them individually, not at once in any case. Cooperation is not easy as imperial ambitions are still dominant not only in the USA, but in other emergent powers. With luck, terrorism may decline, but is likely to remain a real challenge. Slow progress is possible but that is not good enough in the political arena. This is precisely the picture that Republicans expect to take advantage of to gain full control of all branches of Government in four years.

Time will tell!