Why Trump Will Be Reelected

I'm writing this on the eve of the 2018 election. At this point the predicted Blue Wave looks more like a Blue Ripple and may even turn into a Red Ripple (which sounds tastier). The election is being billed as a referendum on President Trump. Regardless of how it turns out, Trump has a near-lock on reelection in 2020. There are several reasons why I'm making this prediction:

The President's party typically does poorly in the first mid-term election. Under Obama, the Democrats suffered a major Red Wave in 2010. So did the Democrats under Clinton. Both presidents went on to be reelected. Trump's popularity hit a historic low point last year but it's recovered and is above Obama's at this point in Obama's presidency. So, midterm results seldom have much to do with a President's reelection.

Another problem is that the Democrats have far too many candidates. The first tier of candidates, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have all run and lost before. The are also ancient. Biden and Sanders make Trump look young and Clinton, who is a few months younger than Trump, can't match his energy.

Of the she second tier, only Elizabeth Warren is nationally known. The rest, like Kamala Harris and Corey Booker, are known to political junkies but not to the general public. That makes it hard for them to raise enough funds to break through into the top tier. There are a couple of billionaires in the third tier who can get around this by self-funding but they're even less known.

Despite all these candidates, the actual policy differences between them is minimal. Bernie Sanders was able to challenge Hillary Clinton from the left but the party as a whole has moved so far to the left that there are few actual policy differences. That makes it even harder for candidates to break into the top tier.

All of that gives Trump and advantage but what really cinches it for him is the white hot anger the Democratic base feels for him. In order to win the general election, a candidate will need to appeal to more than just the Democratic base. But the base hates Trump so much that they will not support anyone who doesn't share their hatred of Trump's policies.

Immigration is a big factor here. Democrats laughed at Trump and his wall but illegal immigration is a major economic issue to working-class Americans. It's a major reason Trump won and a clear majority of the population supports enforcing immigration laws. Prior to Trump, enforcing boarder security wasn't a controversial policy. But that's changed. The more Trump enforces immigration the more the Democrats call for open borders. That's a losing issue for them but calls to abolish ICE are so common that the Democratic candidate will find it impossible to disown them.

A lot of pundits have described Trump as a populist but that means that anyone opposing him is going to have to take a lot of positions that are unpopular with the general electorate, just to get the nomination.

Little has been written about the internal problems within the Democratic party but they are real. The Democratic elite is richer, whiter and much further to the left than the majority of the party. That's how Trump was able to win states like Pennsylvania and it gives him a chance at making further inroads into the Democrats.

There's still a possibility that Trump will lose reelection. A major recession will kill his chances of reelection. That's somewhat outside his control. There's also the possibility that a scandal will finally stick but that gets less likely every day.

Barring one of these external events, the Democrats don't have a chance of unseating Trump.

Why the Democrats Can't Be Allowed In Power Again

The Democrats have gotten scary over the last decade or so. They are rejecting the basis of America in general. If they come to power (meaning the Presidency and both houses of Congress) our basic institutions are at stake. If this seems overwrought, just look at the the things they want to eliminate:

The Electoral College. In two of the last five Presidential elections, a Republican won the Election even though the Democrat had more votes (note, in neither of these cases did the Democrat actually have more than 50% of the vote). Their response is to propose abolishing the Electoral College.

The Senate. After the Kavanaugh confirmation, several prominent Democrats pointed out that the Senators voting for confirmation represented smaller states than the ones against confirmation. They also began referring to the Senate and the Electoral College as racist remnants of slavery.

Free Speech. This the oldest point on the list. For years the left has tried to argue that the 1st Amendment doesn't protect hate speech. Unfortunately the best definition of hate speech is any speech they hate. In other words, they are in favor of outright censorship of their opposition. This has been going on in colleges for years - progressive speakers are welcomed with open arms but conservatives are protested and often required to pay for expensive security.

Guns. The left's antipathy for the 2nd Amendment is even older and more deeply ingrained than for the 1st Amendment. The subject or their ire varies from decade to decade. Currently they are after AR-15s. In other decades they were after handguns. Facts and figures don't phase them. They are operating from the viewpoint of, "I don't want a gun so no one else should be allowed to own one."

Due Process. Due process is part of the 5th and 14th Amendments. For certain crimes, the left has given up on due process, at least on college campuses. A "dear college" letter circulated to colleges by the Obama administration called for new, harsh policies for accusations of sexual assault. The standard of guilt was reduced to 50.001% likely, the accused was often denied right to a lawyer and, in many cases, wasn't even told what the accusations were until his hearing. While college is not the court system, being expelled for sexual assault still carries a life-time stigma and can ruin someone's life. Many on the left want to see this precedence carried into the courtroom. Their justification is that "women lie about rape so seldom that they should always be believed." The figures they are citing put false rape accusations in the 1%-3% range but these figures are for cases that were investigates and actually went to trial. Even if that number was correct, it turns on its ear the liberal adage "I'd rather see 100 guilty go free than a single innocent convicted". This reversal shows the sea change in the shift on the left from being liberals to being progressives.

Honest elections. The Democrats are convinced that their key to total control is getting more people to show up at the polls. Accordingly they keep making it easier and easier. They refuse to purge voter rolls of people who are dead or have moved. They register every warm-body they can find with little regard for their legal status. They insist that any sort of ID requirement is voter suppression. In some cities they allow non-citizens to vote on some issues which makes it even easier for some to slip through the cracks and vote in the general election.

Limits to immigration. Abolish ICE is a current battle cry among Democrats and Democratic Socialists. They aren't real clear what they would do in its place. It's implied that they would allow open borders. To quote Milton Freedman, " It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state." Welfare states are only possible when the majority of citizens are productive workers. Add in the antipathy to acculturation and you have the recipe for a failed state.

Capitalism. This is a growing movement on the left. They want to eliminate capitalism with "social democracy" or something similar. They are always vague about exactly what they want. Somehow it involves workers running the companies and deciding what will be produced. Their rhetoric is still rooted in the notion that everyone works in a 19th-century factory and that the factory owner have unlimited wealth. They also ignore the fact that every country that has tried real socialism (not just free college and health care) devolves into a dictatorship pretty fast.

So, that's what we have to look forward to if the current crop of Democrats get in power. This is an example of winning an election then using their power to be sure they never have to run again. If they manage to accumulate enough power they will ruin the country.

So we can't let these idiots in power again.