Democrats, especially Biden supporters, believe that Biden can beat Trump again. ‘Believe’, however, is too strong a word. They hope and pray. Behind their backs, they cross their fingers. The opposite is more probable: Trump is likely to beat Biden. I make this prediction with no joy, but with a lot of fear. Trump is a very dangerous man. And his supporters in Congress are very dangerous, too. When they attack science, the FBI, the military, and Justice, they are acting like people who want to destroy democracy and create an autocracy. And when Trump’s people start planning for an Imperial Presidency that takes over the Federal bureaucracy, they are behaving exactly like autocrats.
Even if he is in jail, and even if he has been convicted of some serious crimes, I think Trump will beat Biden. Trumps supporters, his so-called base, will not abandon him. They don’t believe, or don’t care about, January 6, stolen documents, or other charges. Why are they so devoted? It’s because they firmly believe that he is the only one who can save them from the government, from the political elites, the social elites, and the economic elites. They may be right about that.
Of course, to beat Biden, Trump needs more than the 30 or 40 percent of voters who make up his base. He needs some Democrats to stay home, and he needs a lot of Independent voters to actually vote for him.
How in the world can a Trump victory even be imagined to happen?
Here’s how: 1) Underestimate the effect of inflation on independent voters; 2) Overestimate the effect of the abortion issue on independent voters; 3) Estimate fairly the effect of Biden’s age and Vice-President on independent voters; 4) Don’t ignore the effect of border and immigration issues on Independent voters.
There’s a recent poll that shows Biden ahead of Trump by five points nationally. That’s a useless poll; it means zero. We don’t elect a President by a majority of all votes. We count votes by states and elect a winner in a state-by-state electoral college. In the last election, which comforts democrats but shouldn’t, Biden won the total vote by millions. But he only won the election that mattered by less than 8000 votes in three states.
Only a few States matter. The usual suspects: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In those ‘swing’ states, the election was and will be a very close thing. And Trump people are working hard to insert themselves into the election process of those states.
There are no viable alternatives to a Biden-Trump runoff. The Democrats have no alternatives to Biden, and the Republicans have no alternatives to Trump. For different reasons and in different ways, these front runners have contrived to be the only candidates in their respective parties who can win the nomination. The Republican National Committee should be disqualifying Trump from running in their name, but they won’t because that Committee is dominated by Trumpers, and the Republican candidates they have are too afraid to speak up for themselves. (Chris Cristy excepted.) The Democratic National Committee should be finding and promoting alternatives to Biden-Harris. But they won’t because that Committee is too busy praying Biden will beat him again in those swing states.
It’s a terrible gamble the Democrats are taking. The stakes are extremely high; If Trump wins, think of the consequences. The U.S. quits NATO, Ukraine falls to Russia, Taiwan on their own, incompetence rife in a Trump administration, and maybe even an autocracy replaces democracy. The risk is enormous, but the Dems are taking it on. Trouble is, the rest of us will be the losers.
Trump can win those swing states. He almost won them before. Independent voters are an unpredictable lot. Biden, the politician, is not popular. Inflation is way worse than his government figures indicate. if they looked at what real people really have to buy, they would see. But they don’t want to see. Voters will see, however.
Trump will campaign more effectively than he has in the past. To independents, who don’t really like Biden much, he won’t seem so bad. He won’t appear so extreme as others on abortion. He’ll stress Biden’s age, immigration, crime, inflation (especially), and so on. Independents will have to choose an alternative they don’t like (Biden) or another they don’t like (Trump). No one knows what the majority of them will do – or why. The election in those swing states will be very, very close.
Third party? Will only hurt Biden. Trump’s age? Nobody seems to care; he’s younger than Biden.
It will also be chaotic, with lots of misinformation – a weak word for the fog being already created by wild and crazy stories on the Internet and in social media, to say nothing of the darker web and the capabilities of the new Ai to mimic photos and speech. We’ll be able to vote but no-one knows what happens after that.
It will be a nasty, close, scary election. And there’s always a chance Trump or his cult will try to steal it again – maybe successfully this time.
Just Sayin’.
John R. Dixon 