2020 election

At this point, we can relegate the admonitions and advisories to the small print reserved for the disclaimers about possible side effects on bottles of medicine and past-performance-is-no-guarantee-of-returns notices on mutual-fund prospectuses. Sure, it is possible that Donald Trump will lose the presidential election in 2020. It is also possible that he will choose not to run. Many things are possible. But as I have explained in these virtual pages — taking care to post those cautionary bulletins — it is likely that Donald Trump will run again for the presidency in 2020 and it is very likely that he will win and win by a much larger margin than his victory in 2016. I set forth my thoughts on the subject at the end of March.

‘Charlottesville, Virginia is home to the author of one of the great documents in human history. We know it by heart,’ says a freshly sanded Joe Biden over swooping strings, in tight focus and excruciating high-definition. As the camera cuts closer, you can just about notice his watery eyes flicking from one side of the autocue to the other. The former vice president is taking up arms in ‘the battle for the soul of America’, and he’s doing it on YouTube. The build-up to elections used to center upon television air-time: CNN town halls, fierce attack ads, appearances on late-night talk shows. But the humanoid sociopaths over in Silicon Valley changed all that in the Obama era. Now the key battleground is social media, and the hunt is on for a viral moment.

For so long, Democrats thought that the Mueller investigation would bring down President Donald Trump. The truth could be the opposite: without the Mueller investigation, President Trump is sunk. For two years, all that FAKE NEWS, as he so often called the allegations of collusion with Russia on Twitter, was the BEST NEWS Trump could have hoped for. The whole story was such obvious elite media madness that it induced mass sympathy towards him among the saner public. Trump knew that. Hence all the tweeting. For two years, Trump could make out that he would have already Made America Great Again were it not for the establishment collusion WITCH HUNT, and most people would say he had a point. Take away Mueller, and the heavy impeachment talk, and support for Trump starts to vanish.

Is a #NeverBernie faction starting to emerge among Democrats? Sanders is on a roll after his appearance at a town hall meeting on Fox News where he garnered the applause of many in the audience and attracted several million viewers. He attacked Trump as a ‘pathological liar’ and defended his sweeping healthcare — BernieCare? — plan. After Bret Baier asked how many in the audience were willing to trade in their current plans for Medicare for All, a majority raised their hands, much to his surprise. President Trump was clearly irked by Sanders’s successful foray into hostile territory, tweeting “So weird to watch Crazy Bernie on @FoxNews. Not surprisingly, @BretBaier and the “audience” was so smiley and nice.

Last week Barack Obama, grayer, wearier and older in every way, was in Berlin at one of his foundation’s conferences for ‘emerging leaders’ in Berlin. After wheeling out a few cringe-inducing platitudes like ‘I don’t have a regular meditation practice’ Obama did say something genuinely interesting about where the Democrats are heading going into 2020. He warned that elements of the party were becoming a ‘circular firing squad’ who targeted those ‘straying from purity’ on a variety of issues.

For all that progressives hate Donald Trump’s policies, his tax cuts and his travel bans, nothing has been more outrageous to them than his personality: his boorishness; his bullying; his unshakeable satisfaction with his white, male, wealthy self. That’s why Democratic candidates have approached the next presidential election with the single-minded purpose of not being Donald Trump. Their policies are not like his, but more significantly they are not like him. If he is insulting they are civil. If he is obnoxious they are respectful. If he is reactionary they are progressive. If he is uncaring they are empathetic.The problem, though, as these candidates will learn, is that you cannot just be not-Trump. You must be something else.

There are some furrowed brows (as well as some furtive giggles) over Tucker Carlson’s recent hypothetical musings about what the president might do should he decide he wanted to lose his 2020 reelection campaign. Maybe he would cut funds for E-Verify, gratifying businesses that profit from exploiting the low-wage labor of illegal immigrants (that’s ‘undocumented workers’ in weeny-speak), but hurting American workers. Maybe he would make cuts to Medicare. Maybe — most deadly — he would raise taxes on gasoline, something that would matter hardly at all to those East coast elites who don’t drive much but that would have an immediate effect on those in the heartland who tend to drive more and are on a tight budget.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘charisma’ as ‘compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others’ – how fortunate then that the Democrats have been blessed with two exceptionally charismatic 2020 candidates in Beto O’Rourke and Andrew Yang. The candidacies of Beto and Yang are especially intriguing as they represent a pitch to the American people delivered from two opposing ends of the charisma spectrum. Beto is the hyper-sanitized, telegenic, photogenic, focus-group optimized old-money Texan who, as he says himself, was born to be in it. He’s also physically attractive, which counts in politics. This was true for John F.

Do Democrats want to win the 2020 election? Do they understand why they lost in 2016? I’m increasingly unsure. It seems like every time a relatively reasonable candidate or undeclared candidate gets a little buzz, the Democratic base tries to derail any possible momentum. It happened with Amy Klobuchar who is apparently a hardworking hard-ass. So what? I want a president who is tough enough to run the country. Being nice isn’t a qualification for the job. Neither is being in tune with the most recent sensitivities of the tribe of the politically correct. Throughout his many years in public service, we’ve all seen the myriad photos and videos: Joe Biden is touchy. Very touchy. Sometimes bizarrely so.

Harold Wilson was right that ‘a week is a long time in politics.’ But, hey, watching the president in Grand Rapids the other night, and taking a gander at some recent polls, I am willing to ascend pretty high up the old backyard oak, shimmy along a well placed branch and say, with confidence if not quite certainty, that Donald Trump will win the 2020 presidential election, and win handily. But, but The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chris Matthews, James Comey, John Brennan, Cher, CNN, those pathetic females on The View, college professors across the country, George Conway, Maxine Waters, Mad Max Boot, Twitter-addled Bill Kristol and writers for his novelty web site The Bulsomething all tell me that’s impossible. A formidable phalanx of contrary opinion.

Long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang isn’t afraid to take a position on, well, anything. Browse through his campaign website, and you’ll see not just that he believes in universal basic income – the policy proposal for which he’s best known – but also that he wants to mandate the payment of NCAA athletes, to crack down on spam phone calls, and to secure $6 billion to revitalize dying shopping malls. Many of his policy positions are tied to causes with little prominence in the mainstream but a devoted following on the internet, like his recent stance against childhood circumcision, the domain of an online community that refer to themselves as ‘intactivists.

Presidential politics is all about excitement. So maybe it should worry the Democrats that their most exciting 2020 presidential prospects, according to pretty much all early polls, are two white guys pushing 80. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton genuinely excited a Democratic base that wanted to elect the first woman president. Eight years before that, Barack Obama surpassed even Hillary as a source of enthusiasm among Democratic voters. And now? Kamala Harris has been in the race for nearly two months without polling close to Bernie Sanders, who in turn trails only the yet-to-declare Joe Biden. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke have been well behind Harris, and the rest of the field is negligible.