1. "This is a deeply, deeply polarized country not just by party but by class, David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Obama, told me. While Obama’s attention to nuance and emphasis on diplomacy was seen by many as a strength after the bellicose, black-and-white W., Axelrod said, now some find those qualities a weakness and yearn for a strongman. There"
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Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics
2. "We have an out-of-control id taunting a tightly controlled superego. We have the king of winging it versus the queen of homework. She says he’s too unpredictable to be president, he says she’s too predictable. Trump can excite his crowds but falters on substance; Hillary has substance but falters on exciting her crowds. The boor versus the bore, Time’s Charlotte Alter call it. He’s"
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Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics
3. "We have two candidates with the highest unfavorables ever recorded and a majority of voters who feel stuck voting against, rather than for, someone. Both parties nominated the only person who could possibly lose to the other. Voters are agonizing about whether they can trust either candidate."
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Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics
4. "Will Trump, who has scant impulse control and who’s willing to say the most insulting, provocative things that people wouldn’t say at a dinner party much less a global forum, get into a tweet battle with a madman and start a world war? Will Hillary ever seem on the level? Or will she always be surrounded by a cordon of creepy henchmen and Clinton Inc. sycophants, shrouded in a miasma of money grabs and conveniently disappearing records and emails? Both"
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Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics
5. "As much as anybody since George Wallace or Pat Buchanan, he has overtly sent dog whistles of race out to white working-class voters. That gratuitous defamation of group after group, person after person, is just anathema to Obama. He genuinely believes this guy would be a calamity for the country. Unlike the Bushes, who outsourced their political thuggery, Donald Trump does his own wet work. He"
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Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics
6. "Not to credit Donald Trump, because he’s crude and combative and an egomaniac, but in a weird way, he’s at least being candid. And I guess there’s something oddly thrilling about a guy who rips the mask off it all and is standing there as the naked id of politics. He is the destroyer of the old world. The"
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Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics
7. "He did not seem interested in raising his game beyond Twitter insults and ill-advised retweets (including one about Megyn Kelly as a bimbo and some that originated on white-supremacist message boards). Even the quietly supportive Melania told Donald to knock off the retweets. He"
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Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics
9. "Trump is the Kim Kardashian of American politics, replacing substance with solipsism and issues debates with Twitter feuds, and showing a rare talent for grabbing the attention of an ADD nation round the clock as he tries to be Troll in Chief. Celebrity"
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Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics
10. "Given the electoral history of the Republicans since Nixon’s Southern Strategy, winning races by stirring up racist, homophobic and misogynist feelings, it was rich to see them criticizing Trump for those qualities. They simply wanted a nominee who would be a more subtle bigot, as party tradition demands. The"
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Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics