Right now, Trump’s chances of winning reelection in 2020 are probably an order of magnitude smaller than his odds were of winning election in the first place in 2016.
But - suppose lightning struck twice and he actually did - ISTM the meltdown would be far worse than the reaction to Bush winning reelection in 2004. There was much more of a meltdown to Bush being reelected than to Bush winning office the first time.
With hopes of kicking out Trump via ballot dashed, I think there would be a serious move at impeachment or the 25th Amendment, because that would be the only legal way to get him out. I also do think a considerable number of Americans would move out of the country and perhaps revoke citizenship, far more than did so in 2004. Most people who opposed Bush still found life in the Bush administration to be tolerable (no matter what they may have said about leaving the country,) but after four years of Trump I suspect many would truly find four more years of Trump intolerable.
After a while, though, the outrage against Trump might actually lessen, because people would be exhausted after having vented their anger against Trump for four years and *still seeing him get reelected nonetheless. *
Republicans would also have far less reason to support Trump - and in fact all the more reason to ditch him, now that he couldn’t run for a 3rd term, and the GOP would be steering its best to avoid a 2024 landslide defeat. And the GOP would probably have lost one or both houses of Congress by 2022.
Maybe this is your perception, but mine was entirely different. I remember Bush’s re-election as being somewhat pre-ordained; I expected him to win fairly comfortably and he did.
I think you’re confusing surprise with anger. Kerry’s loss was obvious from much further out than Gore’s, so it wasn’t as surprising. But it also came after four years of Bush’s bumbling, so there was a much more palpable sense of, “How could people vote for this idiot again?”
I know I’m going to be significantly more pissed if Trump wins again, than I was when he won last year. Even if Trump’s victory is obvious a year in advance.
I don’t think any of that is true. I am certainly not a Trump supporter but I do know that any incumbent has an inherent advantage. Trumps approval ratings aren’t that great but he is extremely good at self-promotion in his own, weird way.
I still believe that he never really wanted to be President in the first place but he will do whatever is necessary to sustain his ego. He may just get tired of the whole thing and turn the next candidacy over to Pence or he may get so wrapped up in the whole idea of winning at any cost that he goes for re-election himself.
Trump should be an easy candidate to beat but the Democrats could fuck up a wet dream at this point. They still have to find a candidate that isn’t even less popular. It is like betting on a race of lame horses. One of them will win but it is hard to predict which one and you know the results will not be pretty in any case.
Incumbents are never a sure thing to beat, no matter how bad they’ve performed. It usually takes more than four years for a President’s core voters to start defecting, so he can almost always count on his base of support to turn out to support him.
Generally, incumbents only lose when the alternative is compelling, has a message, and has a plan to address whatever voters’ core concerns are about the incumbent’s performance. That’s going to be complicated with Trump though, because at least so far the core concern with Trump is that he’s a son of a bitch. I don’t think that will get him kicked out of office, although I do see it hurting Republicans not named Donald Trump. Trump voters don’t have much reason to support the party’s downballot candidates, and anti-Trump voters are going to be even more motivated to get rid of them. Trump himself though might survive that backlash, as Obama did, and GWB before him. The real reckoning comes in that second midterm and the next general election.
2000 and 2004 were both expected to be close. it was the way that Bush won that angered people. With his own brother as governor, a secretary of state in charge of elections that ran his Florida campaign, and a Supreme Court that twisted themselves into a legal pretzel to justify a partisan decision, that’s what really caused the animosity. A clear Bush victory in Florida would have been different. Plus, let’s remember that Bush flailed around until right around this time in his first term when, “September 11 changed everything.”
2004 was a masterful campaign as Rove got same sex marriage bans on the ballot in critical states. While public opinion was starting to turn against the Iraq War, Bush didn’t really begin to slip until his botched handling of Terri Schiavo, Katrina, and Iraq dragged on and on. 2004 showed the polls super tight and the race would come down to Ohio. i canvassed for Kerry in Ohio and I remember a lot of voters who were somewhat undecided but they did like the arrogant cowboy attitude of Bush. Remember that the Bush admin was constantly raising the terror threat level.
It is still way too early to tell what a 2020 Trump election would bring. I’m sure a lot of people didn’t want Reagan to win again in 1984, but the result was never in doubt. Trump had to have all the stars align for him to win in 2016 and it is awfully hard to get lightening to strike twice.
2020 does present a problem for the Democrats, though. Leading up to '04, the rising star seemed to be Dean, until he sodomized himself in New Hampshire. The other candidates all lacked personality, and the party settled on Muselix Kerry – pick him because he will be better for you than Bratwurst Bush. Not really a winning strategy.
So can the Democrats come up with someone who can compete with Trump (Pence, or Ryan, as the case may be)? Right now, it looks like they are planning on running Yawnie McBupkis, given their apparent rudderlessness. Unless the Rs look like they have run us into a hurricane flooded ditch with the engine on fire (which could well happen, and not be Obama’s fault), more years of Republican rule may are a real prospect.
It seems unlikely Trumpo will run for another term, simply because he probably never wanted two terms and because he won’t be facing Old Disaster this time around. But I do think the more people predict his fall and destruction the more he confounds those predictions.
His failures are so continuously magnified and exaggerated — since the MSM will always Hates It Forever for reversing their Instructions to The People — people may tire of such doom and gloom, giving him the benefit of the doubt, particularly as the economy does well. In actuality he’s pretty much the same as any poujadist GOP president ( which to be sure is awful ). The Democrats concentrated so much on the false narrative of L’AffaireRusse ( because again they wanted it to be true ) they lost their chance to nail him on his social policies. — And even now they are more interested in suffering immigrants than the Rust Belt flaking off.
However, there is a ray of hope in his re-election for lovers of Democracy. If he gets in again, it will again show he’s the product of the Will of The People. And that they deliberately want this person. And that America has moved Trumpwards.
Well, it won’t be Yawnie McBupkis, which BTW is an awesome name. The likely candidates are interesting. Biden and Sanders have authenticity on their side. Harris and Booker are interesting as well, although they may make the mistake of being too cautious and scripted.
The only Kerry-like candidate I see in the possible field is Kristen Gillibrand. Which means she may very well be the nominee.
Oh, I think we got away from the OP’s question though. I think the social reaction will be heads exploding more than when Obama won and Bush won reelection. I think the reaction to 2016 was shock, but a loss for the Democrats in 2020 will more likely consist of disbelief and anger. Although there will probably be plenty to salvage. The Republicans’ 2020 Senate map is absolutely brutal, so there should be Democratic gains there. Like I said, even if Trump survives, he’s going to hurt the Republicans as long as he’s in office. Presidents often don’t pay for their own mistakes and crimes. It’s everyone around them who does.
Who is the meltdown coming from and who is going to move for impeachment? Because it will hardly be much of a meltdown if its coming from people who couldn’t be bothered to actually get out and vote against his re-election in the first place.
If Trump gets re-elected it will be for the same reason he got elected in the first place, because thats what the American people wanted. There won’t be any meltdown worth talking about, his opponents did nothing now and they will do nothing then.
yes, well, if the most effort people are willing to expend is “melting down” on social media, they’ve no one to blame but themselves. 'cos it’s nothing more than attention-seeking. just like Miley Cyrus sobbing her guts out after Trump won; it’s “PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO ME AND LOOK HOW SADS I AM.”
True, but it’s not hard hard. A good candidate+good message+bad incumbent makes winning for the challenging party pretty likely. The problem in the case of Kerry and Romney was that they were probably not the ideal candidates. Too flawed in their own right.
I wonder what you thought Trump’s chance of winning in 2016 was, close to the election. The ‘smart money’ thought that was pretty small. Are you saying Trump’s chance right now appears ‘an order of magnitude’ less than 100% (based on hindsight that he won), less than 20 or 30% (or whatever Nate Silver said) or an order of magnitude less than 1% (the chance the NYT guy gave Trump in 2016).
I guess that preamble was a throwaway not critical to your question but might partly answer it. If people on the left or ‘establishment’ again convince themselves Trump has little chance but he wins again, they’ll freak out. Like they did in 2016 (and continuing to now so far in some cases), probably worse. If they come to understand better that it’s very early to say he’s actually reduced his chances considering especially the advantages of incumbency, and steel themselves for a tough battle to unseat him realizing failure to unseat him is very possible, then maybe they won’t freak out as much if he does win reelection.
Who in recent history has lost a presidential race, for an open seat or even against an incumbent, and not been widely viewed as an ‘awful candidate’?
Yeah, if the Democrats don’t nominate a candidate who ends up losing (aka ‘awful candidate’) they’ll end up winning. That observation doesn’t give a lot of specific guidance as to who such a candidate might be, nor say much about the odds of picking one.
Yeah, Trump’s chance of winning reelection is nowhere near an order of magnitude less.
It’s probably less than his chances in 2016 (Silver’s estimate is the only one worth considering), given the fall in his approval ratings since his election, but it’s way too far out to meaningfully speculate on actual percentages.
