11-19-2019, 07:07 AM
(11-19-2019, 12:13 AM)Teejay Wrote: Depending on who gets chosen as the Democratic nominee, Trump could win the 2020 election. However, it is likely Trump would lose the popular vote while winning a majority in the electoral college. Also, there will be along with voter suppression in some states, actual vote rigging through hacking of voting machines.
By the way, I have no doubt that vote-rigging occurred back in 2016. Because Trump was accusing the Democrats of rigging the election. Therefore; I am assuming if Trump lost in 2016, then Trump would have blamed his loss on vote-rigging by the Democrats, an allegation that I seriously believe that Trump will use if he gets defeated in 2020.
I wonder what will happen if Trump wins in 2020 despite losing the popular vote. Leading to many people realize that the election was rigged so that Trump could win?
The last three Presidents (Clinton, Dubya, and Obama) got re-elected much as they were elected the first time. Five states switched between 1992 and 1996, Clinton dropping Colorado, Georgia, and Montana while picking up Arkansas and Florida. Three states flipped from 2000 to 2004, Dubya dropping New Hampshire but picking up Iowa and New Mexico. Two states (Indiana and North Carolina) and NE-02 flipped, all away from Obama between 2008 and 2012. If President Trump were in as strong position in which to get re-elected in 2020 as in 2016, then maybe Trump would lose two of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while picking up some states that he barely lost (Maine at-large? Minnesota? New Hampshire?) and win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote.
Patterns exist for good reason, but they also break for good reason. Extrapolation of a trend is one of the riskiest predictions for the minuscule benefit.
Yes, Clinton would be impeached, but for something that most people came to think a triviality. So he lied about consensual sex. Big f---ing deal! Dubya had an administration with problems that would snowball into a disaster while a speculative boom ended in a financial panic -- but not until after he was re-elected. Obama offered more of the same in 2012 as in 2008 as an administrator... and a Presidency that didn't create new problems. Maybe some people found that Obama solved their problems for them and sought to go on with someone else. (Example: Obama presided to an end of a monetary crunch, a financial meltdown, and a spike in energy prices that threatened the recreational vehicle (RV) industry important to the Indiana economy. RV's are obviously big-ticket items that people can often put off buying; a credit crunch makes buying one on credit much more difficult; and RV's devour gasoline about like a large dog devours meat if given the chance. That is an odd way for Indiana voters to thank Obama, but Indiana voters could revert to old patterns with impunity starting in 2010.
On the other side, every President is unique. Trump has the most distinctive curriculum vitae that any President has ever had, having no experience in elected office of any kind, having never been a member of any federal Cabinet position, and not being a war hero. He got elected on his reputation of getting things done as an entrepreneur.
President Trump has done little to win people over to him between 2016 and 2020 except to give huge tax cuts to a few. His behavior is erratic in the extreme, and he has done nothing to mitigate his tendency to insult people not in his coalition. He is monstrously corrupt, dishonest, and cruel.
Blackmailing a foreign head of state solely for his political advantage is a horrific crime. To be sure, the President might need to lay down the law -- but if laying down that law means suppressing slavery, piracy, drug-trafficking, banditry, or terrorism, the demand can come with promises to strengthen the sovereignty of the national leader elsewhere.
I know of corrupt politicians who went down to electoral defeat due to scandals even though everything seemed to go right for their Party that year. Of course, that has never involved the President before; it has involved Governors, Senators, and State Representatives.
Trump is not going to win back many people who voted against him. He has done nothing to undo the dread that many had of him. His behavior is not going to become more conciliatory. He has not achieved any workable compromises.
Add to that, he has failed miserably at the promises that he made. Imagine that you are an iron miner in Minnesota, and you heard Trump promise improvements in infrastructure. That means a huge increase in investments in public projects. Concrete highways and iron bridges devour huge amounts of iron and thus iron ore. Skyscrapers are practically steel-and-glass crates... That means that iron workers get more hours on the job and might get relatives to get well-paid jobs as iron miners instead of doing low-paying jobs. People not fit to work in the iron mines find that the better-paid and new iron workers spend more money at the casual-dining restaurant and give bigger tips. So if you are a waitress at the local Applebee's you get some more money for Christmas presents, at the least.
Trump's solution was to add exorbitant tolls that go to his cronies, which means that fewer people use the roads... and there might be no reason to raise their carrying capacity. Make something more costly to use, and fewer people will use it. Such was not going to require a huge expenditure on rebars and the iron ore that foundries churn out of iron ore. So good politics is making deals. Nobody quite gets everything that he wants, and nobody gets shut out. Trump's deals are one-sided in the extreme: those who fail to support him get only the shaft. Trump is about as bad at that as LBJ was good at that.
There is no magic in three successive two-term Presidencies.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.