GOP or Dems: Doomed if they win in '16

[pbrower2a]

Dubya had the biggest disaster of a Presidency since Buchanan -- but the $#i+ didn't hit the fan until the second term. The economy was going to implode, and the wars that Dubya bumbled into had yet to show how bad they could go until the second term. I can't imagine any President being able to get America out of the mess before 2008.

The risk for the Democrats losing in 2016 is that the Republicans get lockstep control of American politics, and with that they can entrench themselves so that they never lose a free election -- ever. They can turn the political system into a system of nearly pure patronage. They can change election laws to the detriment of any but the rich. They will not be able to fully knock the Democrats out, but they can make the Democrats about as relevant as the tame, formal opposition in China. On the other side, if the Republicans really muck up, they may foster social unrest like any unknown since the 1960s -- and in a time of far greater dangers. ISIS makes the Vietcong look like saints.

The risk for the Democrats winning in 2016 is that they get caught with the end of a long bull market. Then the Republicans get to promise economic growth without telling the rest of us that it is only for the rich -- and the rest of us get $crewed. 

It's a huge mystery, one whose result nobody can predict.