It didn't matter if Clinton was really corrupt, or if she was as corrupt as post-Soviet politicians: It's all about the optics. "If they were public servants all their lives, why are they so rich?" -- that question would have been a powerful weapon against them in the young democracies. In Ukraine, where a nationalist, anti-corruption revolution ousted the previous president in 2014, it is being asked right now in the wake of a property declaration campaign that revealed local officials have stashed away hundreds of millions of dollars in cash.
The U.S. is never compared to the young democracies of Central and Eastern Europe because the same arrogant U.S. elite that failed so miserably this year has been so proud of the U.S. political tradition. As the tradition collapsed, some members of the pundit class have had to admit they didn't really understand the country. "America, we hardly knew ye," economist Paul Krugman tweeted. "Certainly I misjudged the country."
It's time to give up the hubris. The U.S. is a country like many others in most important respects. Everything that can happen elsewhere can happen here. Trump has just happened.
Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.