USA Politics

Investigations or not, the right is still looking at him as if he’s a god. I really wouldn’t be surprised if he won a second term.
 
We'll see how he spins Venezuela up. It's a client state of his Kremlin boss and he could lose a lot of hawk points there.
 
I never thought he'd win the first time, and even though so many people have turned on him, it is all up to the Dems and who ends up going against him.
 
The only thing I can see that makes Trump a "clear favorite" at this stage is incumbency and the fact that so far he's the only candidate who is for sure on the ballot (unless RNC pulls their support which I don't see happening). Other than that, to call him an early favorite now is like saying he had no chance of winning in 2015. There aren't any facts to really back that.

Some things we know:
- There is no indication that Trump has built a greater coalition than what he had last election.

- A few of the Senate Republicans Trump campaigned for flipped some seats. Granted they were all in red states, but it's noteworthy in a blue wave year. On the other hand, some races were closer than they should've been (Texas) and Arizona isn't reliably red anymore.

- The "blue wall" that seemed to break for Trump in 2016 seemed to trend toward Democrats again in 2018, suggesting 2016 could've been a fluke. This is Trump's best, and maybe only, path toward victory. He only won these states by small margins and has little room for error.

- Hillary Clinton was a bad, unpopular candidate. So far it doesn't look like she'll be running again.

In the meantime, we have to wait and see who the Democrats nominate, what the economy looks like, and what the divided government does this year. So far the only thing of note is the government shutdown, which didn't go well for Trump.

There are also investigations that might not lead to his removal from office but can do damage but probably aren't going to be his biggest problem unless something really bad comes out. I don't think anything he does foreign policy-wise will make an electoral difference.
 
Mosh said:
There is no indication that Trump has built a greater coalition than what he had last election.
Click to expand...
Based on personal observation, I think that his follower count will eventually turn out to be less than it was in 2016... but at the same time, I don't think it'll drop that drastically, and I definitely think that what supporters he has will fight on with more bite than ever before. For whatever reasons, I dunno, but they seem rooted even deeper in their belief that Trump is one of the best presidents we've ever had.
 
Once the Democrats coalesce around a candidate it will probably become apparent if Trump has a realistic chance of holding on or not. He didn't have a realistic chance of winning the first time, it was a conglomerate of ifs that all broke in his favour.

1. Hillary Clinton was the least popular general election candidate in history (other than Donald Trump).
2. Extensive GOP voter-suppression efforts paid off in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (less so in Michigan, but still there).
3. Russian interference was extremely skilled, extremely targeted and extremely pro-Trump.
4. Historically it has been very hard for a party to win the election immediately after a two-term president retires. Since the Great Depression it's only happened once (GHW Bush). Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ, Clinton and Bush Jr all failed to have a successor from the same party.
5. Trump is a fantastically charismatic man in a non-traditional sense, and motivated a bloc of disaffected voters, building an unexpected coalition.
 
I also live in Minnesota, and I like Amy Klobuchar. I think her heart’s in the right place and she avoids a lot of the typical bullshit that politicians spew out. And she does tend to outperform the spread by a wide margin: https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/02/08/politics/amy-klobuchar-electability/index.html

I think she also came off as calm and reasonable in the Kavanaugh hearings while dealing with a belligerent nominee. The question is whether the kind schoolteacher vibe is going to stand out in an overpacked field. I have serious doubts about that.
 
I think at this point the person who wins the nomination has announced already.
 
Well, duh! I mean, it's, like, REALLY cold you guys. It's more, like, Global COOLING than global warming. I mean, like, why trust studies and experts and SCIENCE, when you can just go outside and feel how cold it is? Like... no brainer.
 
Should come down to Sanders vs Harris in the end, with corporate Dems taking Harris' side. Sanders' movement has gained a lot of momentum but it's still difficult to overcome corporate Dem influence.
 
I think progressives having a real option this time (Warren, for example) is going to split his vote aggressively. Bernie has no chance in Iowa, he could win New Hampshire (Warren has as good a chance here as he does), no chance in South Carolina, maybe something in Nevada, then will lose to Kamala Harris in California.
 
I don’t think he makes it far. While he did create a powerful movement in the Democratic Party, a lot of his platform from 2016 is going to be integrated into the campaigns of other candidates. There’s a lot of fresh talent in the field and Bernie isn’t going to stand out the way he did when he was one of two serious opponents (and still lost btw). I just hope that if it becomes clear early on that he won’t be winning the nomination, he gets out of the race to make room for the people who have a chance.

That being said, should he win the nomination, he’s a solid opponent against Trump. He has charisma and a similar populist appeal. My only concern is with his long political history the GOP could be holding on to some damaging stuff. There were already a few mini scandals since the first run.
 
Bernie is pretty toxic on the federal level. The Republicans just never tore into him during the primary because 1) they had their own violent primary to fight and 2) they didn't want to be seen as helping Hillary win. His weaknesses will be exposed because he has a very non-compatible record, especially on guns, with the rest of the Democratic mainstream.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top