If we didn't have Sarah Palin, would we have Donald Trump? President Obama isn't so sure. In an interview published Monday in New York, Obama explained that he sees a "straight line" from when Sarah Palin became John McCain's vice-presidential nominee in 2008 to Trump's surprise success in 2016:
I see a straight line from the announcement of Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential nominee to what we see today in Donald Trump, the emergence of the Freedom Caucus, the tea party, and the shift in the center of gravity for the Republican Party. Whether that changes, I think, will depend in part on the outcome of this election, but it's also going to depend on the degree of self-reflection inside the Republican Party. There have been at least a couple of other times that I've said confidently that the fever is going to have to break, but it just seems to get worse. [Barack Obama, via New York]
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