Galaxies of electrons in our Einsteinian universe are being expended on U.S. primary election prognostications. Computers are melting with the wretched excess of analysis. But as everyone (United States and not) has a “dog in the fight,” and the political exercise has been both vitally important and vastly amusing, still another perspective may be useful.
First, the Republicans should win the 2016 election. U.S. politics are cyclical; it is rare for a president to be defeated after one term; it is even more rare for a party to get a “third term” especially when following a problematic president. And consistently over 70 percent of Americans believe the USA is headed in the wrong direction.
Second, the Republicans must win the 2016 election. A third, and probably fourth consecutive term of Democrat presidents would likely alter the U.S. sociopolitical landscape inalterably and indefinitely. Although the Republicans are likely to hold Congress, it will still not be possible to limit a vigorous executive—as Republicans know to their irritated fury when Obama has taken unilateral action on civil rights, immigration, environmental protection, budget expenditure, gun control, criminal justice, and foreign policy that they have been unable to thwart or alter.
