What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? That’s one question raised by the 2016 presidential campaign. The immovable object is the close and bitter partisan division that has prevailed in general elections for the last two decades. The irresistible force is the corrosive discontent of American voters, their sense that the nation is headed off on the wrong track and that experienced leaders are more the problem than the solution. The partisan divide may remain, in the end, stalwart. In that case, it becomes easy to forecast the shape of the presidential race but hard to predict the winner. In this century’s presidential elections Republicans and Democrats have won...
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