Yeah, that’s basically what it comes down to. Unless, as speculated earlier, Bloomberg is trying to get liberals and progressives not to put all their eggs in one basket, that’s fine, but otherwise, trying to figure out NOW if Trump will be reelected in four years, positive or negative, is foolhardy.
I think the economy would have to be in flames for someone like Bernie to win, particularly at the age of 78. And if Bernie goes for it again why wouldn’t Joe Biden (same age) toss his hat in the ring himself? He’d probably have more street cred and he’s a more mainstream and cross-sectional appeal than Sanders. My guess is that if the economy were in flames, the mood of the electorate would be to go back to someone they have some confidence in rather than taking a chance on an unknown quantity. In that situation, you’d have to figure that the outsider schtick would be pretty worn out at that point.
But I’ve been wrong and misread the electorate before, so who knows.
My bet is Trump will get impeached, Pence loses to a Democrat in 2020.
It was a puff piece with very little substance. As you can see I never mentioned impeachment. Not sure where you are coming from but I am confident in the future of America and the wisdom given to the ‘founding fathers’ to be able to overcome even a god who wishes to be the most powerful man in on earth.
The point was to refute your claim that “2018 will neuter him”. The quotes I posted were primarily focused on the 2018 House election. I assumed you could skip over the 10 or so words that discussed impeachment.
Lets get away from looking for star power. The leftish coalition is just that, a coalition of aligned interests. Whereas our enemies have the advantage of singular dedication to their Dark Lord.
We don’t need a Patton, we need an Eisenhower. Someone who can negotiate a fair balance between competing interests, not a cipher soaked in charisma. We don’t need a Leader, we need a coordinator. A moderator.
(And I’m not just saying that because our own moderators are the envy of the nations! But think about how insufferably smug we could be if one of our own Luminous Ones were elected! “My fellow Americans, when I come back, I will bring pie”…)
Sounds like Hillary. :eek:
Well lets see. Many of us never fathomed that Trump could even win a first term, so we aren’t the best at the prediction game when it comes to Trump.
Points in favor of Trump winning re-election
[ul]
[li]He will be an incumbent, incumbents generally win.[/li][li]He enrages liberals, which is a selling point to the GOP base. Liberal tears etc. [/li][li]Voter suppression laws may be stronger by 2020, which will help him (then again, the courts are overturning some which may hurt him).[/li][/ul]
Factors that worked in Trump’s favor in 2016 that will not work in 2020
[ul]
[li]The Democrats was deeply unpopular with many liberals, independents and moderate conservatives. This reduced the democrat turnout[/li][li]Trump had no record to run on. In 2020 he will have a record to run on. He can’t just claim ‘everything will be amazing’ since he will have 4 years of a public record at that point. [/li][li]Some people who voted for Trump voted for him as a wild card or because they wanted to shake up the establishment. I don’t think that motivation will be there in 2020, at least not as intensely[/li][li]The democrats took the midwest states in the blue firewall for granted. Now the dems know they need to campaign in WI, MI, MN, PA, etc and can’t take them for granted. [/li][li]The democrat was running for a 3rd consecutive term. The public generally do not support the same party 3 elections in a row. [/li][li]Liberals were not very motivated, but will be in 2020. [/li][li]If he can’t actually give any benefits to the WWC, they will not support him as strongly. Trump will still win them, but he may only win them by 30 points instead of 40. Trump has come out in favor of cutting health care for 23 million people, hasn’t done anything to create jobs, etc.[/li][/ul]
Also there may be recession between now and 2020, which will hurt Trump.
I’d place his odds at below 50%, but who knows. I’ve been wrong about Trump every step of the way.
No, he’s going to win with 99.8% of the vote and 49/50 states. Because absolutely no poll or conventional wisdom matters anymore. His election proves it. So nothing is unimaginable and Trump will always win.
If we look purely at history, Trump will succeed or fail based on the economy, just like every other President (if he makes it through his first term).
Since cutting taxes and clearing away regulations is a good short term economic strategy, if Congress implements a reasonable set of legislation (ignoring Trump), it’s possible that they might end up boosting the economy just in time for the reelection. Of course, then it will start crashing towards the end of the second term, since it’s not a particularly good long term strategy.
I’m that respect, I would say that Trump has pretty good prospects. Congress is going to ignore his budgets, but they are going to do something that’s traditionally Conservative at least for the next two years, and the economic impact of that will trigger just around when the reelection would be in full cycle.
So the question is largely one of whether Trump can be taken out before then. Once straddled with a Democratic Congress, and with a good economy (the people won’t take note of the fact that it was the Conservative Congress that gave them the good economy, since they’re uninterested in politics and generally uninformed), the people are going to feel pretty secure to keep him on unless the Left can pull out someone that puts asses in seats. They’ll need a Bill Clinton or Obama, not a Hilary Clinton or Al Gore.
But that’s only if we look purely at history.
Despite this board’s consensus that Trump is the darling of the right and the people, you’re all forgetting that he never has shown any popularity with anyone except a very small group of idiots. He won the primary because he was the only candidate not splitting the sane vote, and the RNC decided that they’d rather look like they were giving the people what they want and run a shadow government, rather than back their candidate and use the runoff to get him elected. He won the Presidency because both he and Clinton were so undesired that the middle started home and the Presidential election turned purely into partisan voters making partisan votes, thus favoring the party rather than the candidate who had the better electoral map.
Assuming that the middle shows up at the next election, all the Democratic party might have to do is to nominate someone who is actually electable.
I guess the big question is who would that be? The Democrats need another Barack Obama or Bill Clinton (pre scandals). Someone charming who captures the imagination of the American people.
They also need to not underestimate the idiocy of middle America who think “mehh…both candidates are bad so I’ll vote for Trump because I don’t want a bunch of Liberals taking all my money to give to lazy poor people or filling the country with homos”.
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This one isn’t going to happen. It is highly unlikely Trump will be impeached. There may be people close to him indicted but I don’t think anything will ever be connected directly back to him. And the GOP will never allow it to happen as long as they have control of Congress.
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Most of the people who will be hurt by GOP policies are willing to take it as long as it upsets Liberals. Plus, most of them will gladly chalk it up to the Obama/Democrat/Liberal “Deep State” before admiting they are wrong.
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I wish I could believe this one but I haven’t seen anything to give me much confidence. My deeply conservative brother keeps saying, “Please, please, please nominate Elizabeth Warren. Please, please, please. Or Bernie.” I imagine someone just as easy for the right/Trump to destroy is likely.
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Everyone keeps pinning their hopes on this but I don’t think the shift will be as soon as or as dramatic as everyone wants it to be.
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When this “energized” part of the electorate actually shows up at the polls I’ll believe it exists. A few marches here and there in the immediate shock of the election results doesn’t prove much.
And 2018 won’t flip the House. That’s just fantasy.
We Democrats are royally screwed until we start trying to win back the blue-collar/Reagan Democrat voters that Hillary took for granted in PA, WI and MI that cost her the election. All I’ve heard my fellow liberal Democrats do since Election Day 2016 is talk in insulting terms about these folks and people like them. Until an effort is made to understand why they were attracted to what Trump represented and still represents to many of them there is little to no hope for those of us on the left end of the spectrum.
And if it is racism? Or just years of media brainwashing? Or requires a fundamental shift in basic party beliefs? Then what?
I think you’re overlooking something that will only become a bigger factor (crisis) in the next few years: voter suppression. The Republicans are doing a full-court press on the minority vote and even on liberals where they might be identified. They’re developing methods on how to purge inactive voters from rolls and they’re targeting districts where they have higher minority populations. If the Democrats want to win, they’re going to have to convince more white voters that it’s in their interests to vote against Republicans. And I don’t see evidence that there’s a major sea-change right now.
I don’t know why anyone would treat Bloomberg’s prediction as being more significant than anyone else’s except to the extent that he is trying to signal something.
If it’s something about his own candidacy, I would be very wary. Bloomberg is just as authoritarian as Trump is.
BobLibDem, I admire your relentless optimism, but your posts tend to go like this time and time again:
*
- Victory is imminent for the Democratic Party! (because demographics, GOP shooting self in foot, and because “the good side always wins”)
- (Victory doesn’t come)
- The Democrats lost because half of America is bigoted and backwards, but have no fear, good and justice will prevail!
- Victory is imminent for the Democratic Party (because demographics, GOP shooting self in foot, and because “the good side always wins”)
- (Rinse and repeat)
Life as a politically aware lefty is getting kicked in the nuts, then in the teeth, and then the nuts once again. We spit teeth and cuss, then get back in the game. We almost never totally win, its usually half a loaf at best. And we can only get that by swearing not to fall back, re-group, and start demanding that other half.
Which is somewhat dishonest. Darn.
I don’t see it as racism. Most of the counties in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that cost HRC the election and helped Trump win actually went for Obama in 2008 and 2012. There are reasons why they changed but I doubt racism is it. Certainly Trump’s rhetoric appealed to racists but that doesn’t make everyone who voted for him a racist.
I’d have said 50%, but either way, Bloomberg is right: Trump has a very GOOD chance of being re-elected in 2020. Why WOULDN’T he?
Sure, people who hated him last year hate him even more now. But those people ALREADY voted for Hillary. An extra-angry, extra riled group of liberals poses no threat to Trump. For Trump to lose, the Democrats have to:
- Get an extra-large black turnout, and
- Peel away a lot of voters who went for Trump last time.
So, for the sake of argument, let’s say that in 2020, the Democrats nominate Liz Warren for President and Cory Booker for Vice President (I’m almost certain Hillary, Joe Biden, Andrew Cuomo and others will be running, but humor me). If that’s the ticket, tell me exactly which states Trump won last time will DEFINITELY flip to the Democrats.
Note the word “definitely.”
If you’re not sure, well, that’s the problem right there. CAN the Democrats win in 2020? Of COURSE they can. But it’s light years from a certainty or even a probability. MAYBE Trump will make some disastrous mistakes and crash the economy or get us into an unpopular war. If that happens, the Democrats’ job will be easy. But what if we just get another 3.5 years of what we’ve had so far?
Just WHAT Trump voters do you expect to win over? HOW you gonna do it?
This. Exactly this.
It’s the work of 20 or 30 years for the Democrats to become once again the party of the entire working class, white as well as non-white. Not 18 months.
And it must be accomplished in the face of aggressive highly paid fact-free propaganda spewing the opposite story all day every day. And in highly gerrymandered districts.
Winning the national popular vote for President is well within the Democrat’s reach. Winning the EC or controlling Congress or many statehouses is a vastly, vastly taller order.
Remember that most Trump voters get their info from Trump. They believe today that he is doing an excellent job. Because he tells them that every day.
He will easily be able to campaign on all the successes he’s had starting from Day One of his presidency. Everything is Great and getting Greater. If there are any un-Great spots left, it’s just because those evil Democrats or wrong-flavor Republicans have managed to gum up the works and impede Dear Leader on the road to Greatness. So far. So vote for more radical Congressmen and by 2024 we’ll finish the job we’ve started so well.
That’ll go down like twinkies at a fat chicks’ convention.