Do you think if Clinton wins that America will return to normal?

I absolutely do not think it will be a return to normal. At least 40 per cent of the US electorate seems to be willing or eager to vote for a person in Trump who has authoritarian tendencies, and zero political experience to boot. Republicans in the Senate are already indicating that if Clinton is elected they would block a vote on any of her Supreme Court nominees to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. This could lead to a revolution in the way the Senate does business. The director of the FBI just may have broken the law by intervening in a campaign a week before election day.  I expect partisan polarisation to get worse, not only between but within the parties.

Are politicians really more dishonest than they used to be?

As one of my colleagues in the department said the other day, the phrase ‘post-truth politics’ assumes there was some prior era in which truth was front and centre as a political consideration for candidates and office-holders. Not only is that not the case, but one shouldn’t exaggerate the degree to which voters are deeply committed to finding candidates who tell them the truth.  People like to have their worldviews reinforced. Political discourse is as much or more about signalling your allegiance to various social groups and causes then it is about trying to present an accurate and unbiased take on the world.  Given a conflict between people’s concern for the truth and their partisan allegiances, I would put my money on partisanship seven days of the week.

What will Obama’s legacy be?

Obama currently has better than a 50 per cent approval rating according to the national polls in the US. I think Obama has been a good president overall. He inherited an economic meltdown and two wars, and managed these issues fairly well in the face of an obstructionist Congress for most of his administration. US actions under his watch have left a mess in Libya, but he has been restrained in his use of force compared to the previous Bush administration, and has resisted the most aggressive voices on foreign policy – especially as far as Iran is concerned. I think the historical evaluation of his presidency will rest a lot on how ‘Obamacare’, the common name for the Affordable Care Act, fares once he has left office.