Opinion | The 2020 US election is looking like a replay of 2016. Will Democrats fail to beat Donald Trump again?

Once again, two questionable candidates are vying for the Democratic presidential nomination. One has been named in a scandal, and the other likes Fidel Castro. Worryingly, Democrats don’t seem to have figured out how to beat Trump

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Published: 2:00am, 14 Mar 2020Updated: 12:14pm, 14 Mar 2020

I watched Hillary over the weekend, a new four-part documentary about you-know-who. As the show got on to her 2016 campaign for United States president, it became hard not to look at the Democrats’ current efforts to beat Donald Trump in November and see a repeat of 2016.

Two tainted candidates are vying for the presidential nomination. One is tainted by scandal, the other by being a socialist in hyper-capitalist America. Both claim to be the best bet to beat Trump. We know how it turned out the last time.

While it is impossible to boil down Hillary Clinton’s loss to one factor, questions about whether she violated national security regulations by using a private email server when she was secretary of state hung over her entire campaign. Her emails drew a 12-month criminal investigation by the FBI, which was closed in July 2016, then reopened and closed again just days before the election in November.

While no charges were filed against Clinton, she couldn’t shake the taint of the investigation. Indeed, she has repeatedly blamed her loss on then Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey.

Her Democratic primary challenger was Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-declared socialist. He gave her a pass on the email scandal, but called her “corrupt” for taking Wall Street money. Party leaders, along with much of the US media, eventually rounded on him. Clinton was always going to be their candidate.