I might have been hasty. I got out my spreadsheet and ran some more simulations. A 2008 critical election may still be preserved if Trump serves a single term and is replaced by a Democrat (or third party candidate) whose party then wins three in a row. That is Obama = Nixon-Ford, Trump =Carter, New person = Reagan-Bush. Generally, critical election are followed by strings of 3, 4 5, or even 6 sequential victories by one party. But such long strings haven't happened since 1932-52. The Reagan-Bush string was only 3 long. Most would think since 1980 began that string 1980 would be the critical election. I use an oscillator to identify critical elections. I have found that a plot the fraction of the preceding 30 years that had a Democratic president shows an oscillator the turning points of which occur at critical elections.
![[Image: Presidential-Oscillator-fig.gif]](http://mikebert.neocities.org/Presidential-Oscillator-fig.gif)
I prepared this graph several years ago and plotted out the results of various options. The blue dashed line shows the results of a Democratic victory in 2016 with a second term in 2020. The purple line shows the results of Republican victory in 2016 and loss in 2020. The red line shows the effects of a Republican victory in 2016 and 2020. What this says is a two term Trump presidency will invalidate 2008 as a critical election because there was no clear turnaround in 2008. A Clinton victory would cleanly establish an obvious trend change in 2008 like the ones around 1968, 1932, 1896 and 1860. A single term Trump presidency followed by three Democrats would also do the trick.
A single Trump term is not that hard to imagine. He has toyed with running for president, never took it seriously and then decided what the hell, why not? And he won, mission accomplished. Now that he has won, he has proved his point (that he could do better than all the other clowns). But the man is 70; he is not a politician, he never dedicated his life to public service. I suspect he will figure four years is enough, he proved his point, he should show now get on with life for the few good years he has left. Will his base support Pence or Christie or whoever runs in 2020? It is entirely possible they lose, particularly if President Trump is not very popular.
I prepared this graph several years ago and plotted out the results of various options. The blue dashed line shows the results of a Democratic victory in 2016 with a second term in 2020. The purple line shows the results of Republican victory in 2016 and loss in 2020. The red line shows the effects of a Republican victory in 2016 and 2020. What this says is a two term Trump presidency will invalidate 2008 as a critical election because there was no clear turnaround in 2008. A Clinton victory would cleanly establish an obvious trend change in 2008 like the ones around 1968, 1932, 1896 and 1860. A single term Trump presidency followed by three Democrats would also do the trick.
A single Trump term is not that hard to imagine. He has toyed with running for president, never took it seriously and then decided what the hell, why not? And he won, mission accomplished. Now that he has won, he has proved his point (that he could do better than all the other clowns). But the man is 70; he is not a politician, he never dedicated his life to public service. I suspect he will figure four years is enough, he proved his point, he should show now get on with life for the few good years he has left. Will his base support Pence or Christie or whoever runs in 2020? It is entirely possible they lose, particularly if President Trump is not very popular.