Politicians are famous for their memories, which are remarkably detailed, especially when it comes to names and faces, places and dates. But that gift necessitates another, just as important: the gift of forgetting. How much our politicians would rather not remember—defeats, mistakes, embarrassments, not to mention crimes and misdemeanours, malfeasances great and small. Ask Hillary Clinton (the private email server!) or Donald Trump (the “birther” controversy! the tax returns!) Rather, don’t ask them. And please, don’t ask the two parties stuck with these two battered candidates till the Doomsday moment on 8th November, which could well lead to even darker days.
If Clinton wins and Republicans hold onto the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate, Republican legislators, embittered by a third straight presidential defeat, may well announce a formal investigation of Clinton regarding her private email server usage even before she takes the oath of office, the first step in a long siege whose goal will be 2020. And if Trump wins?
The prospect has pitched Republicans into the most ambitious programme of forgetting in modern political history. Victory in November would make their party his, but it could also make him captive to its agenda, since he has no viable programme of his own. A Republican fail-safe agenda is already in place. Since the spring, House Speaker Paul Ryan—the party’s highest ranking official— has been trying on the role of legislative proconsul. The two would be decidedly awkward partners in the new Republican era.