I believe Trump will lose the 2020 election by more than 4 million
votes. Those who will vote against him know he is a dangerous, pathological liar who will say anything to further his own position.
However, for the swing voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and
Wisconsin, who could again give Trump an Electoral College victory, this is not
necessarily the case.
Trump is a master propagandist who constantly keeps us off
balance with new outrages. He understands that enough swing-state voters are
either not paying attention, don't care, or are ignorant about how our
Constitution works (one in three can't name any branch of government), so that
by repeating lies ( "fake news," "witch hunt," "perfect
phone call") over and over, enough swing-state voters will vote for him.
This can happen unless there is an "outside the box" response.
Trump will be impeached (55 percent of us now support the
impeachment inquiry). However, despite two-thirds of House Republicans voting
with the Democrats to condemn Trump's abandoning our Kurdish allies, (and
condemnations from former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Mitch McConnell,
and Mitt Romney), he will not be convicted in the Senate. Recent polling shows
that 60 percent of Republican voters support Trump's decision to abandon the
Kurds, with 72 percent saying they want the party to keep him.
The alienation from our political process that has taken root in
42 percent of our electorate has become so deep, so tribal, and so virile that anything Trump does is okay with them. This
includes holding the Ukrainian army hostage to the $391 million appropriated by
Congress for it to fight Russia's invasion. As verified by administration
officials, this withholding was dependent on Ukraine's agreeing to investigate
"dirt" on two untruthful conspiracy theories: that Ukraine, not
Russia, interfered with our election, and that former vice president Biden and
his son engaged in corrupt behavior in Ukraine. This quid pro quo is an impeachable offense.
Unless there is a real
time counterpoint on Twitter and the broadcast airwaves aimed at swing-state
voters correcting his propaganda, there is real danger of a sequel to the Trump
in the White House reality show. The oversized field of Democrats vying for the
nomination cannot do this. They are too busy raising money and promoting their
respective policy decisions. The mainstream media, even though it points out
Trump's falsehoods, can't do this. It for the most part relies on
"balanced" formats that include having Republican apologists on air,
doesn't necessarily attract swing-state voters, or has become Trump TV. Propaganda,
especially for uninformed voters, is powerful stuff. You can't fight it with
conventional formats. It's going to be up to the Democratic National Committee
(DNC) to take this on.
The idea is simple. Trump posts a false tweet, or makes a false
statement on the White House lawn, and "instantly" a correction
pointing out the lies and the reasons for them is posted to the digital
universe aimed at the swing-state voters who will decide the 2020 election. The
correction is then picked up and reported on by the mainstream media.
I realize the DNC is not set up to do this. However, the
same old approach to electoral politics has gone out the window with this president
in office. The DNC can raise the money, or start a "go fund me" page,
to support this approach. More importantly, it has the standing and clout to
attract the attention of both the Twitter and broadcast universes. In other
words, it is a "platform" the media cannot ignore.
Remember when Trump said he could shoot someone on 5th
Avenue and not lose any voters? He did, and he really hasn't. He is complicit
in the deaths of the hundreds of Kurds whom he, to our shame, abandoned. If
that doesn't call for an unconventional response from the Democrats, what does?