National Post (National Edition)

LOATHE HIM AS YOU MAY, HE STILL STRIKES A CHORD WITH A GREAT SWATH OF THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE.

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eral Bureau of Investigat­ion, the U.S. State Department and perhaps even the White House gave immunity to all Clinton’s aides, and made every effort to obstruct Congressio­nal inquiries into the email scandal. In other words, he has been exposing how the power of the Clinton machine has infected the heart of the American system of government and how justice bends before power.

So how is it is the Trump campaign still has wheels? How can such a fractured personalit­y, a blundering reality-show celebrity, wander about the American political landscape with even a slight chance of winning? It isn’t because of the candidate. It is despite the candidate. Trump, as such, inspires no one. But by instinct or just random chance, he highlights much of what is wrong with American politics. He says what has long been waiting to be spoken, calling out the political process itself, the players and the media.

Trump is rough, rude and unready to be president, by any normal or even strained standard. That he is still in contention is a barometer of how greatly American politics needs to be taken out of the hands of the people who have owned it for a generation. That’s the only reason his campaign matters.

With savage irony, it ’s likely even he doesn’t know that his own campaign is the strongest proof of how broken that system is.

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