This is the third in a series of four posts. The first in the series is here.
PREDICTION 4: Donald Trump will NOT become the Republican nominee.
When Trump realizes that he is losing within the GOP, he will, like the petulant child he is, leave the Republican party to form a new party, and take his supporters - who are a minority within the Republican party - with him. He will tell himself, and them, that he can attract enough independents to win in November.
UPDATE: This appears increasingly unlikely, as the leadership of the Republican Party have joined themselves at the hip to Donald Trump. Ronna Romney McDaniel's declaration that "we need to unite our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump," when 48 states had not yet held their primaries left me speechless. The Republican party is simply not a functioning party anymore.
The leaders of the party are continuing to speak and act as if Donald Trump has not been charged with 91 felony counts; as if he could not be found guilty of all of them by year's end; as if he is not an adjudicated rapist; as if he is not in danger of being wiped out financially by the outcome of just two legal cases that have already concluded; as if they don't see and hear the signs of his emotional collapse and cognitive decline; as if the Supreme Court will rule in his favor and invalidate decisions by Colorado and Maine to keep him off the ballot entirely in accordance with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Donald Trump has more baggage than an airport terminal, and the party is acting as if he is their best and only hope of defeating Joe Biden in November. Their steadfast clinging to him has trashed this prediction so far, and has thrown my next prediction completely out the window.
PREDICTION 5: The GOP will nominate Chris Christie.
Because he was the only candidate who told the truth about Trump.
UPDATE: You already know: Christie dropped out early. VERY early. To his credit, he did not join his fellow competitors for the nomination who dropped out of the race in lining up to kiss Trump's butt in New Hampshire.
He remains the only candidate who told the truth about Trump all along. Now, Nikki Haley is beginning to tell some truth about him. Someone in the political press should ask her if she would still pardon him.
As Trump's legal problems, financial problems, emotional collapse and cognitive decline loom larger and larger, I see a slim possibility, but not a probability, of her becoming the GOP candidate.
PREDICTION 6: Neither Christie nor Trump will gain enough electoral votes to win, and Joe Biden will gain a second term.
UPDATE: This prediction, as stated, is also now trash. Replace "Christie" with "Haley," and I believe it still holds true.
How confident am I in these predictions?
I am absolutely certain about Predictions 1 - 3, which simply say that what is already happening will continue to happen.
Prediction 4 is the center of this entire exercise - everything after it flows from it. I believe that it makes absolute sense, but I do not feel absolutely certain about it because, in my view, the Republican party stopped making sense some time ago.
So, what if Prediction 4 proves false? What if, against all reason, the GOP nominates Donald Trump again?
In that case, I offer an alternate Prediction 5…
PREDICTION 5: Joe Biden will defeat Donald Trump. Handily.
My confidence level here is between 95% and 100%, and the 5% margin is only a hedge. I acknowledge the possibility of Trump winning, but I can’t imagine it. The first reasons that I can’t imagine it are Predictions 1 and 2: in my mind, nothing that happening with Trump right now adds up to him even being a viable candidate come fall, much less winning.
But beyond that, there are two other things.
The first thing is that TRUMP IS A LOSER. IT’S WHAT HE DOES. He lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by nearly three million votes, and got lucky in the Electoral College. In 2020, his luck couldn’t make up for losing to Joe Biden by seven million votes.
(Do Democrats even know that Joe Biden's total of 81,283,501 votes was the largest number of votes ever received by a Presidential candidate? If they do, why don't they say so, every day?)
Perhaps worse than that, Trump's endorsement of down-ticket candidates has led to their defeat more often than to their victory. Indeed, it’s almost a kiss of death.
TRUMP IS A LOSER.
The second thing is that Joe Biden is winning. This slow-talking old man is getting things done at a scale and a pace that would be remarkable for someone 20 years younger.
The Israel-Hamas war could be the great millstone around his neck, but would anything that happens in that conflict cause people to switch their votes to criminal defendant (and possible convicted felon) Donald Trump? I doubt it.
So, in both of two alternative scenarios, I see Joe Biden winning.
I wish that I could end here, but I feel compelled to offer one more prediction.
No comments:
Post a Comment