For both the big US parties, 2016 is a horror show, and it’s only just begun

On the left and the right, the US political elite are drifting away from their core supporters.

A gloriously revealing moment on the campaign trail in 2008: I go to watch the Republican candidate John McCain in rural Ohio, busy nailing the faux “town-hall meeting” thing. Yes, sirree, he has it all – lumberjack shirt, boots, grin, adoring audience of tobacco-chewing locals.

Then this: a little old lady takes the microphone and warbles, “That Barack Obama, he’d be a disaster as our president.”