Posted on 08/07/2018 7:13:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
There is a saying attributed to various wise men: “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” Allow me to tempt fate and offer some musings about the 2020 election and America’s democratic future:
The Republicans. I will be amazed if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. The water around him is rising fast, and he is likely to be long gone by 2020, either via impeachment or resignation in a deal that spares him prosecution.
Trump’s Sunday morning tweet admitted that a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between campaign aides and a Kremlin-linked lawyer was designed to “get information on an opponent.”
(TWEET-AT-LINK)
The tweet undercut a lie that Donald Trump Jr. told in July 2017 saying that the meeting had been primarily about the adoption of Russian children. The lie was cooked up in close consultation with Trump Senior.
In a recent New Yorker post, Adam Davidson details just how Trump’s “no collusion” story has fallen apart, in part due to his own impulsive failure to keep his lies straight.
As Davidson summarizes it:
•The president’s son and top advisers knowingly met with individuals connected to the Russian government, hoping to obtain dirt on their political opponent.
•Documents stolen from the Democratic National Committee and members of the Clinton campaign were later used in an overt effort to sway the election.
•When the Trump Tower meeting was uncovered, the president instructed his son and staff to lie about the meeting, and told them precisely which lies to use.
•The president is attempting to end the investigation into this meeting and other instances of attempted collusion between his campaign staff and representatives of the Russian government.
All of this is more than enough to justify an obstruction of justice charge, a prime ground for impeachment. It should be more than enough to cause Republican defenders to distance themselves from Trump. As Special Counsel Robert Mueller ferrets out more and more detail, a panicky Trump gets crazier and crazier. He will likely do himself in.
When Trump goes, don’t expect Vice President Mike Pence to be the 2020 nominee either. Pence is a famously inept politician, who was on track to be defeated for re-election as the Republican governor of Indiana—quite a trick.
The hardcore Trump base will be furious if (when) Trump is forced out. If Pence succeeds Trump, there will be a free-for-all, with some candidates running as the true successor to Trump and others trying to reclaim a sane Republican Party.
The latter could include moderates John Kasich, governor of Ohio, who is already positioning himself for a run; Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. Their claim to success is that they get elected as Republicans in normally Democratic states. Their problem is that the electorate in Republican primaries is far to their right.
The former could include any number of frothing-at-the-mouth members of the House Freedom Caucus, plus of course Pence. So my bet is that the Republican nominee will be someone other than Trump, and will be presiding over a badly fractured party. What a gift to Democrats!
The Democrats. The entire Democratic pack is running to the left, because that’s where the grassroots energy is. Even Kirsten Gillibrand is trying to position herself to the left of Elizabeth Warren. One can debate whether the formerly centrist Gillibrand has had a sincere conversion or whether she is an opportunistic weathervane. But her stances say a lot about where the Democratic weather is.
Nobody has officially declared, of course, but as a splendid profile of Warren in New York magazine explains, Warren is increasingly the favorite of the activist party base and a front-runner to be the nominee.
Another likely finalist is Corey Booker. If Bernie Sanders goes again, he could be a third finalist.
Joe Biden is prominently mentioned, but I don’t buy it. He is almost as old as Bernie. Biden will turn 78 in November 2020, when Sanders will be 79. Biden is loved by the pundit class, but in two previous primary runs, he lost badly.
If I had to place money on it, I’d bet that Warren will be the nominee, and that Sanders won’t run. If Sanders and Warren get into a slugfest and divide the left, a more centrist economic candidate who is left on social issues, like Booker, could win.
As I’ve repeatedly written, Warren is the most effective leader the Dems have had in decades at narrating the lived experience of regular working people—as progressive politics. Some say she won’t do well with white males, that she is great in person, but too preachy and shrill on TV.
We’ll soon find out. I think she will blow the opposition away in the Midwestern primaries and caucuses.
What about Nancy Pelosi? Should Democrats take back control of the House in this year’s midterms, there is movement among backbenchers in the House Democratic Caucus to replace Pelosi as prospective speaker with a younger leader who is less of a lightning rod for Republican caricature. There are three problems.
First, the other members of the senior Democratic leadership are of Pelosi’s generation. The whip, Steny Hoyer, at 79, is older then Pelosi. Joe Crowley, the caucus chair, was knocked off in a primary by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Second, even though some Democratic candidates have pledged not to vote for Pelosi for speaker in order to take that issue off the table, she has been a very effective leader and there is a great deal of loyalty to her. When Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan challenged Pelosi for leader in 2017, Pelosi won overwhelmingly, 134 to 63.
Third, there is no consensus candidate among back-benchers to succeed Pelosi. Ryan would not do much better if he challenged Pelosi again. She might lose a couple of dozen votes from newly elected Democrats, but that’s not sufficient to topple her. And many newly elected Democrats will be women and progressives—like Pelosi.
My bet is that there will be an agreement in the caucus to give Pelosi one more term as speaker in exchange for her agreement to step down after 2020. And then her successor will be someone not in the current top leadership ranks, but a committee chair or other second-tier leadership figure in their forties or fifties.
As for the midterms? A year ago, I bet that Democrats would pick up 54 House seats. They may not gain quite that many, but they should comfortably take back the House.
A Close Run Thing. After the Battle of Waterloo, the victorious Duke of Wellington described his victory as “the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.” The remark has often been rendered as “a close run thing.”
The appointment and survival of Robert Mueller has been a close run thing. Had Attorney General Jeff Sessions not recused himself, had Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein not been committed to the rule of law, had Sessions not refused to buckle under Trump’s taunts and threats, and had just enough senior Republican Trump allies in Congress not warned Trump to keep his hands off Sessions and Rosenstein, Mueller would have been done for.
If American democracy survives President Donald Trump, it will have been a close run thing. At the risk of making the most out-on-a limb prediction of all, I think that it will.
So, who actually said, “Never make predictions, especially about the future”? The expression has been attributed to figures as varied as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Mark Twain, Yogi Berra, and Casey Stengel. Alas, the original is lost to the mists of time.
It turns out that getting the past right is almost as hard as getting the future right.
Great laugh...glad I caught it.
It's not a question of what you "need." It's a question of who the voters will support.
Personally, I don't see Mike Pence generating much enthusiasm at all ... which is why he wasn't a contender for the nomination even in a year like 2016 when there was a wide-open GOP primary.
The people who elected Trump don’t believe the ‘Russia’ crap. And his popularity keeps rising, even among minorities.
And I haven’t even heard a single of my LIBERAL acquaintances speaking with any concern about ‘RussiaRussiaRussia’.
They’re not paying any attention to this convoluted stuff. The traditional knee-jerk Dem voters will still do that. But some are getting ‘woke’ (can’t believe I used that term...)
If Trump keeps on as he’s been doing, I believe that my confreres among the Independent/apolitical block are going to turn out Yugely! for him.
Those two men appeal to the same voters in OH-12, Kasich’s old district. Suburbanites.
You are full of shit about the 12th. That is my old district and except for the commie areas in Franklin County, which has lots of deadbeats, welfare whores, illegals and other typical rat voters, it is heavily CONSERVATIVE, even the WOMEN. The rest of the country is not like the commie controlled areas of the Northeast like New York and New Jersey.
Kashit couldn't get elected dogcatcher in the 12th after his antics in 2016. His political career is over. That's why the bastard is so bitter and why he tried and failed to sabotage Balderson to get even with Trump.
Took me more than 60 hours to get to cutting it up and eating it.
Thing is..it was wonderful....and worth every minute waiting for....And so was Donald Trump...
Hillary Clinton was not an option. Not even close....She's a liar and a crook...and so is her "husband"....
Trump is real...and say's what we all want to be said...for the most part.
The RINOS...will continue to sink in the quicksand...if they take that path....
Might as well expose themselves now...They have no idea..what they are showing themselves to be.
55-45 or 60-40, counting those who avoid being counted.
If the GOPe and the dems can be prevented from fubaring the economy, Trump can choose to walk to the finish line in 2020, or he can lim0 to the sideline.
90% plus negative coverage equates to 5% plus deficit from reality.
I think CBA is also the one who posts about how great many of ObamaCare’s provisions are. Makes me wonder why he’s even here.
They really don’t want US to reverse the Bush Plan for North Mexico.
Perhaps but he will be the first no party candidate to win reelection
By the way, welcome to Free Republic. You signed up 8n 2016 to be the voice of gloom.
How special.
He should have tuned in to Hannity tonight. Bruce Ohr is the Achilles’ heel of the attempted coup by the Deep State.
Trump will not run, he’s not serious.
Trump will never win the primary.
Trump will never be president.
Trump colluded with Russia and will be impeached.
Etc., etc.
There are two kinds of Anti-Trumpers, Libturds and Krystolites.
I can understand the libturds. Trump is wrecking everything near and dear to them.
But the Krystolites arecjust damn fool elitists who believe the only form of conservativism which is valid is the coffee
Room philosophical nonesense which leads nowhere but gives them a smug sense of entitlement and a kindred form of arrogance they share with their elite liberal counterparts whose approbation they secretly seek.
I have no idea who this clown is, but he’s obviously an extreme left-wing liberal.
I would ignore any such feeling myself. It took me months in 2016 to be sold on the idea that Trump was really serious about running back then!
These people are experts. They have graduated from Ivy League colleges. They have spent their careers analyzing the political situation. Remember - Trump will never get the Republican nomination. What are they putting in that koolaid?
Dont sweat him he wont be around much longer last fr staff meeting was interesting
Plenty of Pubbie voters....had walked away,..and just did not vote....during McCain's and Romney's wanna be elections....
Those two...were and are pathetic.
The walk away movement is more pronounced..now.
We shall see....
They want Kasich/Flake or Flake/Kasich in 2020.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The reason they want them is they want to keep the borders open and the laws unenforced.
They want that final amnesty that turns the USA into North Mexico and swipes the country from the citizens.
So if PDJT doesn’t run again, then we can dig up HilLIARy or Bernie the Red for a post- internment presidency? Yippee!
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