2020 hopefuls: Democrats spoilt for choices
If Donald Trump has achieved anything that could be described as constructive it’s been to help create a political climate that has produced no fewer than 25 declared and likely Democrat contenders for the 2020 election, the opening primaries for which are scheduled for June in Florida. Democrats will be spoilt for choice, but the packed field will thin out as image consultants, policy pundits, opinion pollsters, and fundraisers put shoulders to wheels and the donation dollars roll from one name to the next. This is, the journalist Greg Palast reminds us, the best democracy money can buy.
Former vice president Joe Biden has yet to declare, but is this the time for yet another man who — allegedly — can’t keep his hands to himself? Probably not. Bernie Sanders, who lost out to Mrs Clinton in 2016, is back with not only renewed gusto but also $18m (€15.92m) given by more than half a million Democrat donors in the first weeks of his campaign. The tectonic plates in the politics of most of the Western democracies, including the US, are shifting, but is America ready for a president unashamed to call himself a socialist? Probably not, and certainly not if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who addressed both houses of the Dáil yesterday — has anything to do with it, which she undoubtedly will. The Democratic Party, she says, has no space for socialism.
