US 2020 Presidential Election prediction thread

[Valmy]

Paul Ryan positioned himself as a debt hawk, somebody who supposedly cared a lot about this country's future, and then blew up the deficit in a big way in 2017 once he had the power to actually do something about the deficit. I wasn't suprised even a little bit he didn't actually give a fuck about even the one thing he was supposed to have principles about sadly.

Republicans who actually have princples, like Justin Amash did when he was still in the party, I can respect and deal with because anybody who has values and principles can be bargained with and sometimes you will be on the same side. But somebody who is just full of shit who shifts around on a whim cannot be. They will always find a reason to do the wrong thing.

[The Minsky Moment]

The national conversation about mail-in voting needs to be over now.  There are only two positions left: enthusiastic support and encouragement for mail-in voting/drop box voting vs criminal prosecution for negligent homicide.

[Razgovory]

I have more sympathy for non-Trump GOP politicians than you.

Their problem was that Republican voters were far more loyal to Trump than to anyone else.  The moment you spoke against Trump you risked being primaried (and losing said primary).  It's an almost impossible situation to be in.

Sorry Beeb, but that is simply not true.

The threat of being primaried out of office if you were not radical enough existed long before Trump. Indeed, lots of sane, moderate Republicans were primaried out by Tea Party whackjobs a decade or more before Trump.

The Tea Party transformed the GOP in a Party that nobody should be surprised then elected Donal Trump. He is *exactly* the President the GOP deserved at the moment he won the nomination, because he nearly perfectly aligns with what the modern Tea Party GOP values.

So no, the Paul Ryan's don't get a pass. They were part of creating the very party for whom Trump is the ideal candidate. Not the other way around.

This may be true, but I see little that can be gained by taking such a tact.  We need the moderate (moderate doesn't even sound right, maybe non-nationalists) Republicans to take back their party.  I sympathize with Yi and Derspeiss, I really do.  Their party went haywire and left them without a good home.  I'm also not so arrogant to think that something like this can happen the Democrats.  There are things in the Democratic party that Democrats pretend that aren't there.  Antisemitism that has infected Labor Party could make inroads in the Democratic party, we have already seen some signs of it.

[Berkut]

I have more sympathy for non-Trump GOP politicians than you.

Their problem was that Republican voters were far more loyal to Trump than to anyone else.  The moment you spoke against Trump you risked being primaried (and losing said primary).  It's an almost impossible situation to be in.

Sorry Beeb, but that is simply not true.

The threat of being primaried out of office if you were not radical enough existed long before Trump. Indeed, lots of sane, moderate Republicans were primaried out by Tea Party whackjobs a decade or more before Trump.

The Tea Party transformed the GOP in a Party that nobody should be surprised then elected Donal Trump. He is *exactly* the President the GOP deserved at the moment he won the nomination, because he nearly perfectly aligns with what the modern Tea Party GOP values.

So no, the Paul Ryan's don't get a pass. They were part of creating the very party for whom Trump is the ideal candidate. Not the other way around.

This may be true, but I see little that can be gained by taking such a tact.  We need the moderate (moderate doesn't even sound right, maybe non-nationalists) Republicans to take back their party.  I sympathize with Yi and Derspeiss, I really do.  Their party went haywire and left them without a good home.  I'm also not so arrogant to think that something like this can happen the Democrats.  There are things in the Democratic party that Democrats pretend that aren't there.  Antisemitism that has infected Labor Party could make inroads in the Democratic party, we have already seen some signs of it.

I don't agree. I used to think that, before Trump - there was still some legit figures in the party, guys like McCain, and Graham and others.

But they are all gone. The only ones that are left are those who are selected specifically for being morons, power mad, or just plain bigots. The core of sanity is gone, and there is nothing left to build on.

And it got this bad BECAUSE of people who looked the other way, pretended like the Tea Party wasn't so bad, even sucked up to them, long before Trump. Even I did.

There is no path forward for the GOP.

[katmai]

Bring back the Whig

[Sheilbh]

This may be true, but I see little that can be gained by taking such a tact.  We need the moderate (moderate doesn't even sound right, maybe non-nationalists) Republicans to take back their party.  I sympathize with Yi and Derspeiss, I really do.  Their party went haywire and left them without a good home.  I'm also not so arrogant to think that something like this can happen the Democrats.  There are things in the Democratic party that Democrats pretend that aren't there.  Antisemitism that has infected Labor Party could make inroads in the Democratic party, we have already seen some signs of it.

I agree with Berk. Also if you're looking for a party that's like Labour under Corbyn, it's the GOP (sort-of). The main difference is Labour didn't win any power and also it is relatively easy for the moderates to win back their power. The Labour party is quite centralised and gives a lot of power to the leadership and the National Executive Committee (this is a legacy of the last fight against the hard-left).

I could be wrong but I don't think there's going to be enough time for GOP moderates to fight back because of how decentralised it is in the US. And in the meantime, they will inveitably win again just because it's a two-party system which will be taken that the moderates have done enough and normal service will resume. The only way I can see of short-circuiting that is if they face catastrophe and lose so badly across the board - state, House, Senate, White House - that it sort of foces a reset of the party because it's impossible to pretend things are okay (the alternative is that they stay out of power for a number of electoral cycles which forces them to the same conclusion, but given the system I don't think that's likely). And I hope they become a party that tries to compete for a majority again I think that would be transformative.

Berk's totally right - especially after the impeachment - nothing Trump is doing would be possible without the solid support of his party (Romney excepted).

[alfred russel]

Berk's totally right - especially after the impeachment - nothing Trump is doing would be possible without the solid support of his party (Romney excepted).

What is Trump actually doing besides tweeting stupid stuff at 3am?

His primary policy objective in the campaign was building a wall specifically and immigration curtailment more generally. Despite having a party in control of the house and senate until the first midterms, he never got the wall funded and congress never took up immigration as a major issue.

His only two accomplishments that involved the legislature are tax reform - which was a longstanding republican goal - and judicial confirmations - which are also a longstanding republican goal.

Probably the most impactful thing that has happened is the covid response, and that is mostly executive, but the legislative response has been negotiated with house democrats as well (since they control the house now).

[Razgovory]

I have more sympathy for non-Trump GOP politicians than you.

Their problem was that Republican voters were far more loyal to Trump than to anyone else.  The moment you spoke against Trump you risked being primaried (and losing said primary).  It's an almost impossible situation to be in.

Sorry Beeb, but that is simply not true.

The threat of being primaried out of office if you were not radical enough existed long before Trump. Indeed, lots of sane, moderate Republicans were primaried out by Tea Party whackjobs a decade or more before Trump.

The Tea Party transformed the GOP in a Party that nobody should be surprised then elected Donal Trump. He is *exactly* the President the GOP deserved at the moment he won the nomination, because he nearly perfectly aligns with what the modern Tea Party GOP values.

So no, the Paul Ryan's don't get a pass. They were part of creating the very party for whom Trump is the ideal candidate. Not the other way around.

This may be true, but I see little that can be gained by taking such a tact.  We need the moderate (moderate doesn't even sound right, maybe non-nationalists) Republicans to take back their party.  I sympathize with Yi and Derspeiss, I really do.  Their party went haywire and left them without a good home.  I'm also not so arrogant to think that something like this can happen the Democrats.  There are things in the Democratic party that Democrats pretend that aren't there.  Antisemitism that has infected Labor Party could make inroads in the Democratic party, we have already seen some signs of it.

I don't agree. I used to think that, before Trump - there was still some legit figures in the party, guys like McCain, and Graham and others.

But they are all gone. The only ones that are left are those who are selected specifically for being morons, power mad, or just plain bigots. The core of sanity is gone, and there is nothing left to build on.

And it got this bad BECAUSE of people who looked the other way, pretended like the Tea Party wasn't so bad, even sucked up to them, long before Trump. Even I did.

There is no path forward for the GOP.

Like I said, you may be right.  It did get bad because people looked the other way.  But what do we do about it?  Sure, if Biden wins this year that will buy us some time, but the prospect of Tom Cotton as President in 2025 is terrifying.  How do we stop something like that from happening.

[Malthus]

I don't agree. I used to think that, before Trump - there was still some legit figures in the party, guys like McCain, and Graham and others.

But they are all gone. The only ones that are left are those who are selected specifically for being morons, power mad, or just plain bigots. The core of sanity is gone, and there is nothing left to build on.

And it got this bad BECAUSE of people who looked the other way, pretended like the Tea Party wasn't so bad, even sucked up to them, long before Trump. Even I did.

There is no path forward for the GOP.

I agree, the GOP as it is should only a perfect world be destroyed by the voters. Afterwards a new Conservative party of the traditional sort hopefully would arise. Problem is though that there there appears to be a significant portion of the US public form whom this party as it is, is a perfect fit. No idea what can be done about that.

[merithyn]

I really do wonder if there is a single person who could become President and unite the country again. Biden is more likely than any of the other Democratic candidates, but I almost think it's going to take a moderate Republican to win to do it, and no moderate Republican is going to win as things are.

We've painted ourselves into a corner, and I don't see a way out.

[Sheilbh]

What is Trump actually doing besides tweeting stupid stuff at 3am?

His primary policy objective in the campaign was building a wall specifically and immigration curtailment more generally. Despite having a party in control of the house and senate until the first midterms, he never got the wall funded and congress never took up immigration as a major issue.

His only two accomplishments that involved the legislature are tax reform - which was a longstanding republican goal - and judicial confirmations - which are also a longstanding republican goal.

Probably the most impactful thing that has happened is the covid response, and that is mostly executive, but the legislative response has been negotiated with house democrats as well (since they control the house now).

Yeah - my point is we've had four years of off the record briefing by congressional Republicans (and Republicans in the administration) about how alarming Trump can be, how unfit for office many of them think he is. But they worked actively to block his impeachment (with the exception of Romney) so there isn't a single executive action - relating covid or immigration or the politicisation of law enforcement - at least in the course of the last year are on them. They all thought he was unfit, I'm fairly sure that more than Romney thought he'd probably committed an impeachable offence, but they rowed in.

And I think part of it is a Trumpian corruption - that to get anywhere with Trump you need to actively praise him (ideally on TV) - which made it difficult to be sort of neutrally critical of Trump while staying a party loyalist (which I think is possible under normal Presidents). It reminds me of the whole Vaclav Havel idea of living in truth, to get anywhere with the administration Republicans need to live within a lie (Trump is doing a tremendous job, he's the best President on x we've ever had, no-one could have dealt with this better) and they need to do it publically. The only ones I can think of who resisted that in any real way are Flake, McCain, Romney and Murkowski.

I also would love to see a study of the manner of on the record criticism v praise of Trump. I could be totally wrong but part of me wonders if they put their criticism in statements, talking to reporters which appear in the newspapers which don't really matter to Trump (except for the NYT), but put the praise on TV which matters and he'll see. Certainly if I was a craven Republican Senator looking to assuage my conscience and "moderates", I'd definitely do that.

[Josquius]

I guess we are in for Biden then a very left wing democrat. During her reign of terror (/progress) during which the republicans run around like headless chickens being super nazi, the right of the Democrats ends up aligning with the moderate republicans to take the republican party back to its roots thus setting the US up as a more normal two patty state of socialists vs liberal conservatives rather than its current conservative dominated coalition of non crazies vs hard right lunatics.

At least that's the hope. A whole host of things can go wrong there....

[alfred russel]

Yeah - my point is we've had four years of off the record briefing by congressional Republicans (and Republicans in the administration) about how alarming Trump can be, how unfit for office many of them think he is. But they worked actively to block his impeachment (with the exception of Romney) so there isn't a single executive action - relating covid or immigration or the politicisation of law enforcement - at least in the course of the last year are on them. They all thought he was unfit, I'm fairly sure that more than Romney thought he'd probably committed an impeachable offence, but they rowed in.

It is a huge stretch to say that congressional republicans are responsible for Trump's incompetence because they didn't remove him from office. Practically speaking, you aren't going to remove a president if you don't have public support, and the public support just isn't there. Impeachment was *this year* and the substance of the impeachment isn't even a campaign issue.

I really fail to see how the country would be better off if he got removed. Pence is in charge of the covid19 task force anyway--but assuming that he is so much better than Trump--you would still have 40% of the country fighting mad that their president was removed and Trump would likely be maximizing chaos from the sidelines (and probably running for president). It would be destabilizing long term.

Trump's incompetence is a short term problem, but the longer term problem for the Republicans is how to stay competitive with an almost all white voting base in an increasingly diverse county and general acceptance of diversity as a positive. It isn't hard to look forward and see a looming electoral death of the party.

But the Democrats have a serious problem too. They are now the party of the educated, the affluent, and bigger businesses, and I'm not sure how they can hold that together with the more leftist elements of their base. Right now everything is papered over because they can stay unified in stopping Trump, but Trump as a unifying force won't always be there.

Realignment is messy and can go in a lot of different directions.

[Sheilbh]

You might be right politcally on Republicans not voting for impeachment, but for their votes Trump would be out of office and the president in the middle of a pandemic would not have Trump's psychological flaws. I think you hugely underestimate the impact Trump's indifference to actually being President has. I think it's very likely that you'd have far fewer deaths if Pence was in charge because I think he'd be trying to do the job. So on covid I think you would have more of a focused, coordinated policy that was not primarily focused on addressing the emotional mood of the leader. I don't think it's incompetence that is necessarily - I just don't think he cares about actually being President, for him it's a role on TV or on the phone to foreign leaders. So, in my view, even a very incompetent "normal" political leader would do better and make more of an effort than Trump.

And in terms of scale I believe the US has now, on a per capita basis, had more deaths than the UK and Italy. So I think it is safe to say it's had one of the worst experiences of this pandemic in the world.

Trump's incompetence is a short term problem, but the longer term problem for the Republicans is how to stay competitive with an almost all white voting base in an increasingly diverse county and general acceptance of diversity as a positive. It isn't hard to look forward and see a looming electoral death of the party.

But the Democrats have a serious problem too. They are now the party of the educated, the affluent, and bigger businesses, and I'm not sure how they can hold that together with the more leftist elements of their base. Right now everything is papered over because they can stay unified in stopping Trump, but Trump as a unifying force won't always be there.

Realignment is messy and can go in a lot of different directions.

I totally agree on the GOP and I think the key moment was in the aftermath of Romney's loss. Because at that point there were many in the GOP basically talking about how they win more votes and how they re-align and it is important to remember the early 2000s talk of a strong Republican majority emerging. It ultimately focused around immigration reform and the pushback of the base against that (Cantor's primary as the clarifying moment) ended that. I don't know how the GOP re-aligns without either suffering consecutive losses for a long time or catastrophic defeat now because I think anything else will be too comfortable to force the change.

On the Democrats I'm not so sure. The Democrats seem more comfortable with coalition politics than Republicans, so seem better able to manage it. And the shift of high-earning educated voters to the left isn't a uniquely or weirdly American thing - it's happening all over Europe too, Thomas Piketty refers to it as the Brahmin class. And you know - the people who are backing Bernie and Warren are often the university educated folks (as in Europe), a lot of the base of the moderate left is in minorities. And that's the difference between the US and Europe is that in the US you have this Brahmin class plus minorities which is a stronger coalition because of how diverse the US is, Europe is not that diverse so it's pushing the left into urban, educated, enclaves plus the odd smaller university town (or the Greens are replacing the traditional left). It's definitely a challenge but looking at the global left the US seems best placed to manage this.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I really fail to see how the country would be better off if he got removed. Pence is in charge of the covid19 task force anyway--but assuming that he is so much better than Trump--you would still have 40% of the country fighting mad that their president was removed and Trump would likely be maximizing chaos from the sidelines (and probably running for president). It would be destabilizing long term.

He would not be running for president:

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.