Donald Trump cannot win the 2020 election. But the Democrats can certainly lose it, just as they did in 2016. In fact, they seem determined to do so. They have already put forth dozens of potential nominees, most of whom have no chance of success.
Will Rogers said something like, “I don’t belong to an organized political party; I’m a Democrat.”
Trump fell short in the popular vote the last time around. Since that time, he has surely lost more votes than he has gained. First, he has not fulfilled the promises he made during the campaign. Second, he made himself even more offensive than he was four years ago. And third, his in-house helpers vacated the White House and its environs in record numbers. Many of them wrote books attacking Trump’s character or his wisdom or his leadership — or all three. Those who continue to back Trump either don’t pay any more attention to facts than Trump does, or they listen only to Trump apologists such as Sean Hannity, or they care more about their party than their country, or they believe in the tooth fairy.
Sadky, the motivation behind Trump loyalists is not difficult to discern. Most are good people who have been hurt by thoughtless political and economic misdeeds or by changing realities ignored by leaders over too many decades.
Democrats often seem equally oblivious to reality. They foolishly expected too much from the special counsel. Even now, they focus on proven losers. Bernie Sanders has no chance at winning a nationwide election. His words and past performance are filled with pie-in-the-sky promises, but he offers no realistic plans for implementation (much like Trump).
Elizabeth Warren has some of the same problems. She knows where she wants to go, but she has no rational idea about how to get there. As a highly visible senator, she had zero success in convincing Congress to deal with the deficit – perhaps our most threatening challenge. The interest we pay on the debt — mostly to millionaires — would certainly take care of the social programs our billionaire president wants to starve or eliminate. Neither Trump nor Democrats seem to care about people or deficits, and Trump doesn’t plan to deal with national debt any more than he planned to pay debts he accumulated to build his business.
Almost all Democrat candidates are more capable than Trump, but unless the party can unite early and find a strong, identifiable message, the campaign will be more disruptive than unifying for them.
Republicans, too, have attractive candidates other than Trump. But Republican leadership marches in goose-step against the challengers, and the Trump media echo chamber would just as soon attack rational Republicans as rational Democrats.
There’s a chance that Trump will resign before the election. It makes sense for him to do so. He could easily claim that Congress — especially “those nasty Democrats” — won’t let him deliver the “great” things he promised, that the presidency is overly restrictive for “outstanding individuals” such as Donald Trump, that powerful forces are out to get him and his family, and that he can’t “make America great again” unless the American people learn to appreciate the “greatness” he pretends to offer.
It’s all baloney, but it’s the kind of baloney on which Trump thrives.
Trump’s face-saving resignation would elevate Mike Pence, a relatively easy target for even the least qualified Democrats.
Sadly, it appears that the question in next year’s national election is not who will win but who will lose. And that most likely means that the ultimate losers will be the American people and the American dream.
Don Gale.
Don Gale, Salt Lake City, has, over the past 50 years, written 6,000 broadcast editorials, 500 newspaper/magazine commentaries, 1,000 speeches and a dozen books.
