You May Have Heard---An Election is Coming.

Sure, there are many reasons to fear this election because of the results in 2016. But let's actually consider that. Trump won with a minority of votes because of the quirkiness of the Electoral College. He could do it again, but let's understand that there is no silent majority voting for Trump. He's not more popular and he never had a majority. So, next to consider, does he have the support he had in the past? Well, while a lot of people who voted for him have made it clear that they’re going to vote for him again, there are a lot of people who say they voted for him and that they're not going to vote for him this time. A lot of Republicans are being very vocal and in-your-face about that! The real question about the election for Trump, is did he convert anyone over to his side since the election? What policies would have brought people to him? Would his impotent handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, allowing hundreds of thousands of Americans to die, be a particularly popular selling point to move over to the Trump camp? How about his embrace of dictators while insulting our allies? Do we think that would bring a lot of people over to the Trump camp? Does his support of those malevolent leaders even when they put bounties on our own soldiers lives, really help him? Or when those thugs continue to ignore international law and build up their nuclear capabilities while expressing their love for Trump---do we think that really sways undecideds? There is Trump's attempt to get rid of Obamacare and the guarantees for pre-existing conditions that come with it, without crafting any sort of workable health care plan to replace it. This also carries with it the promise of putting millions of working Americans back on the list of the uninsured. Do we think that's a good selling point? How about the way he took Obama's recovery and while extending it, also added $2 trillion to the national debt? And what did we actually get for that $2 trillion of additional debt? Such a weak economy that it collapsed as soon as the pandemic hit. And as the rest of the world weathered the storm, we didn't even mount a response as coherent much less comprehensive, as all the other developed countries…. And yet they were able to bounce back from their closures, while our economy is still damaged and losing jobs and our country is STILL dealing with a raging pandemic. (New record number of cases just this past Friday). So, what exactly would bring people to Trump who haven't already been there? And if he kept most of the people who voted for him without keeping all of them, that doesn't leave things looking too good for him in 2020. And if the disaster that was the Trump Administration brings out more voters then we saw last election, it would seem likely that most of that motivation will be for people to get rid of him. This is not 2016. The polling back then was actually all within the margin of error and in fact most of the things that said Hillary would win were simply based too much on the nation and not enough on the Electoral College. Now pollsters are taking that seriously into account. Everyone is watching the states though the mood of the nation is also relevant. There are a lot of reasons why Trump won but they had to do with a lot of factors that are not in play this time around. It looks like this time, rather than being swayed by Russian bots that told them that Hillary did bad things and then being complacent because the polls said she would win anyway, this time the public will come out and vote to repudiate failure and hatred. And if all goes as it should polls look as if the voters will take Trumps enablers in the Senate down with him. We are not in the clear in 2020. The Russians are still cheating for Trump. Republicans have kept the pandemic raging to help them suppress the vote they knew they weren't going to get because they handled the pandemic so poorly in the first place. But there are signs that the electorate will correct the disastrous mistakes of 2016 and elect a government that can begin to fix he mess Republicans have, once again, made of the country.