Most people thought it impossible that he would survive the primaries. Even more ridiculed the notion that he could clinch the nomination. That he could be president was off the page, the more so since the tape, the gropings and the non taxes. Yet here is, on a roll, the polls narrowing and Clinton imploding under a new emails scandal.
Of course we cannot yet tell whether the latest rather nuanced declaration from the FBI is seismic or simply routine. Wise commentators, who understand the American system, say the FBI is not stupid and would never have acted in the run up to polling day without very good reason. It may not be hard to identify that reason. Whatever the new evidence is could have caused a subsequent crisis for the FBI, if later it transpired it had something which it kept under wraps, which allowed the voters to vote in Hilary, when had they known, they might have held back. A cover up on a spectacular scale. So what is the evidence? This blog does not know, but there is loads of speculation on the net which you can follow up, if you wish to.
The important thing is this. It is just the event the Clinton campaign feared and the Trump campaign wished for. More scandal about Hilary, widely distrusted even by her supporters. The difference between the scandals which swirl around the two most unsuitable contenders in an American election since Abraham Lincoln, is this. With Trump you just find a serial groper, if you believe his accusers, and a sharp eye for tax avoidance, laced with misogyny and late payment of bills owed to small businesses who do work for him. With Hilary, the more you or the FBI dig, the more stuff wrapped in a question mark you find. And now everybody has a spade. In the run up to polling day.
There is one opinion poll which I think is important, especially now. According to an Economist/YouGov poll, 63% of Americans are unhappy with the direction of their country. That’s a big number. Hilary stands for the things only 37% are happy with. Trump is for change. What that change is exactly, is unclear, but, just like Brexit, it may be a moment for Americans too, to take a leap in the dark.