The article at the link is more forthright than I would be – 10 Reasons Trump Will Win Reelection – but everyone knows anything can happen. But the odds look good and this is pleasant to read since I agree with all the points.
Following up on the 2016 classic 10 Reasons Trump Will Win, here are the 10 Reasons Trump Will Win Reelection:
1. First time’s the hardest
Parties running for a second term have won eleven times and lost just once (Carter / Reagan) since 1900. Getting elected is hard. Getting reelected is much easier. Especially when…
2. Morning in America (and the world?) again
Things have improved for the majority of the country not obsessed with politics. Especially when compared with the fear-mongering predictions.
Dow will never cross 18,000 again? It’s crossed 24.
Trump has no magic wand to get the growth rate up or bring jobs back? He did.
Net neutrality will kill everybody who didn’t die from the tax cut apocalypse. So will pulling out of the Paris Accords and moving the embassy to Jerusalem.
Handmaid’s Tale, putting people in camps, blundering us into nuclear war.
In reality, far fewer people are dying in Syria and elsewhere than under prior administrations. By election day we’re likely to see further steps towards North Korean denuclearizing and partially reunifying with the South. We may also see further progress in Iranians liberating themselves, and continued improvements in relations between Israel and her neighbors. The Islamic State caliphate has been almost entirely taken down. Things will likely look better on election day.
Other than the deranged Trump hatred, the country and the world are better off than they were two years ago, quite the opposite of the insane predictions.
3. Reagan Dems have no home to return to
This election will largely be decided by the working class Rust Belt voters whose families gave us JFK, Reagan, Bill Clinton, Obama, and Trump.
The Democrats hate them. They really hate them.
Chuck and Nancy established that walls are immoral. And they’re the moderates. Open borders are more important than open government.
Gramps’ wing that Kevin Williamson trollingly (but accurately) described as National Socialists has gone full Socialist International. Open borders and socialism.
They want to replace the deplorables with better people from elsewhere.
This is the “the future is female and intersectional” party now.
They hate Catholics, coal, Trump voters, and (strangely) bringing American troops back from the Middle East. And they want to pack the court.
Despite all the misleading talk about Repubs being extremists, in more ways the realignment saw Trump take the middle and the popular positions and leave the extremes to the Dems.
4. Hillary wasn’t the problem
Ask Hillary supporters why Trump won and they’ll say “Russia.”
Ask Trump-hating Repubs and they’ll say “Hillary.”
No.
Hillary had many flaws, but also strengths.
The first woman. She was secretary of state, senator, and first lady. Her husband loved and was loved by the voters Hillary needed. She would take us back to the better and less bitter 90s, while also taking us forward.
Her successor will have her own flaws, and none of these strengths. And by election day, will have likability numbers in the Hillary / Trump range. 2016 was a choice between two historically unpopular candidates more because of bitter partisanship than because of the particular candidates.
5. Trump’s opponents go down
Avenatti, Stormy, The Weekly Standard, Liz Warren, Hillary, Corker, Flake, Comey, Michael Wolff, Michelle Wolf, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Merkel, Macron, Zuckerberg, Colin Kaepernick, the Oscars, Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, and Jeb!, to name a few.
Some of these went down when Trump found a vulnerability and kept hitting it.
But mostly, Trump opponents self-destruct.
Some went down in their misguided responses to Trump. Rubio was the first to learn, too late for him, that Trump didn’t change the rules, he’s just exempt from them. The old rules still apply to everyone else.
Unless you’re Trump, if you go Trump, you lose.
Some went down because the forces they unleashed to fight Trump turned on them. Often with good reason. Eventually, they came for Robespierre too. Or as Derek Hunter likes saying, Frankenstein always comes back to the castle.
Others went down because they never should have been elevated. Deranged media had beer goggles for anyone who attacked Trump, and eventually had to cut bait after further embarrassing themselves with clowns like Avenatti and Wolff. I suspect those who elevated AOC will suffer for it.
All of them misread the terrain, playing to the clapping seals of Trump-haters, oblivious to their vulnerabilities and to how their shtick plays outside their bubble.
Trump’s opponents may start with decent numbers. They won’t stay decent.
While on the other side…
6. Trump has already been hit with everything
Let’s call Trump a Putin-puppet racist rapist, compulsive liar, narcissistic conman who sexually desires his daughter, and is literally Hitler.
Done. What else you got?
There’s a saturation point after which more attacks just show decent folks that you’re the bully.
This will be especially true when more Americans fully understand things like the Steele Dossier scandal. About which…
7. Dems lost their key corrupt allies
Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, Powers, Rice, Ohr, Strzok, Page, Lois Lerner, and others are out. I’m sure Dems still have some dirty tricks up their sleeves. But it’s going to be much harder for them in 2020 when their corrupt friends hold less power.
8. The media has been exposed
Media didn’t have much credibility in 2016, but they still had some. They always had some token Repubs to give them the facade of non-partisanship.
But they spent the past few years all-in against Trump. They don’t even have Trump agnostics at most major outlets. Just a combination of Trump-hating Democrats and Ana Navarros. Fewer people who can be influenced will believe a word they say.
9. Timing
When George HW seemed to be soaring to reelection, George Will warned that Bush got the timing wrong.
The idea was to have the big divisive fights early (Trump went overboard here) and to unify before the reelection.
Trump will time his crises so that most resolve before his reelection. Even limited victories will move important numbers in the right directions.
“Stay on point, Donald” will be gracious at the end of the campaign, winning back some people who want to vote for him if he’ll just stop being mean for a bit.
The House elections were a disaster but Trump correctly focused on the Senate in the midterms, helping to knock off four of the Trump-state ten. He can close well in most of the swing states.
On the other side, the normal opposition playbook is to accept the election results, appear to work with the president, and then say “we tried but he’s just impossible.” Four years of “the Russians tricked the racists into voting for the monster so we should eliminate the electoral college to take away those voters’ power” is an approach that’s never been tried before. For good reason.
10. Repubs are more unified
Repubs were a hot mess on election day in 2016, and in the year following. Most were positioning themselves for the post-Trump era. It took long enough, but they’ve now accepted that their only path to success lies through Trump’s. Trump in turn accepted that his only path to success lies through Cocaine Mitch.
Corker and Flake (and Bannon and Omarosa) are gone. Romney attacked once; he likely won’t do it again.
Lindsey 2.0 has become Trump’s leading wingman. Trump can stop being his own bad cop as allies finally have his back, as most Repub voters want.
Ninety percent of Repub voters support Trump. Many Late-Trump Republicans, who hated Trump during the primaries, are now more solidly pro-Trump than even the MAGAs and Reagan Dems. Trump won their loyalty with judges, Jerusalem (and Israel in general), deregulation, energy development, and generally standing up for “us” (Christian baker, America, deplorables, Kavanaugh…) against those who oppose us.
On the other side, Dems will destroy each other.
Do they work with Trump, or not? Once you’ve established that Trump, Repubs, and everything they stand for are wrong and evil, how do you move forward?
If Repubs have a primary, it will just further prove how solidly they support Trump.
Dem primaries are going to be brutal, and may even go to a contested convention where the candidates will vie for the title of biggest lunatic.
The DNC may be corrupt and evil but they were only mostly clueless. They won’t be able to control the process or the results this time. They won’t be able to make the top challenger say things like “nobody cares about your emails,” or pretend that the delegates didn’t vote against God and Jerusalem. They won’t be able to stop their party from following the Israeli left into long-term opposition.
Summary: A very short story
Once upon a time, there was a large group of swing voters in swing states who were not just underrepresented but despised by many of the most powerful and influential people on all sides.
An unlikely hero or grifter or conman, maybe all of the above, took up their cause. The respectable rich and powerful people hit him with everything they had. But they failed to stop him.
People and groups that hated this man decided to try to work with him, making those who still hated him even angrier. Those who worked with him were happy and successful. Those who opposed him were not, and they kept getting uglier, angrier and crazier, until they had no hope of ever winning back the people they so hated.
Halfway through his first term, he was in the middle of many battles. But he ended them before reelection day, with considerable success.
He went into reelection day with a lot more support than he had four years earlier, especially among the swing voters from swing states whom he first championed. His opponents double down on screaming at the sky.
The end.
Two years is, however, a long, long time in politics. And you have to hope.
Law of Markets 