DONALD TRUMP’S GREAT YEAR
Once again Happy New Year: We do face a fascinating and exhausting political year. The president is back in the White House from his Florida vacation. He played a great deal of golf (during 2019, Donald Trump reportedly spent one day at one of his golf courses for every five days he spent elsewhere). He was enjoying Christmas at Mar-A- Lago while Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani was being assassinated by drone at the airport in Baghdad, a move Trump had approved some seven months before.
So, the year began with a bang. There were ample reasons to wish the viciously effective Soleimani gone. His manipulation of the many Iranian backed militias in the Middle East led to the death of hundreds of American military personnel. The White House could also not help but be mindful that his demise could have a positive effect on Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign.
The long run-up to the 2020 election is well under way. The process is going to be much more difficult for the Democrats than it is for the Republicans. In politics the party with a candidate already occupying the White House does have built in advantages. Donald Trump looks forward to a campaign in which he is the only candidate (the Republican primaries and caucuses can be a real sleep walk). And, fairly early in the process he will have accumulated enough committed delegates to guarantee his victory at the Republican national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Democrats will have a much tougher time (the “out party” always does). To illustrate, the Democrats have a presidential candidate debate tonight in Des Moines as we approach the all important Iowa Caucuses (Caucuses are a kind of pyramid of small citizens’ conventions, an alternative to the more common presidential primaries.). Four candidates in that debate (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden are nearly tied in the Iowa polls with Amy Klobuchar from nearby Minnesota an obvious threat). Each of those candidates can only win by attacking the others. And, there are three more scheduled debates. In the meantime Donald Trump only has to sit in the White House and plan his next rally.
He, and the rest of us, will be forced to face his impeachment trial which may begin next week in the Senate. Donald Trump has done his best, along with many Republicans in the Senate, to make light of that trial and to hope that it will help to consolidate his voting base. He simply denies that he has done anything wrong. But, when the Senate does finally convene with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court solemnly presiding, it is possible that all the denials, all the refusals to allow testimony, may begin to negatively move public opinion in a way the president will be powerless to stop.
The Iowa Caucuses will be held on February 3rd, closely followed by the New Hampshire Primaries on February 11th and the process will be off and running. Assuming that the Republicans in the Senate do not vote to impeach (and they have hardly been profiles in courage up till now) the president should win an unbeatable majority at the Republican national convention fairly quickly.
The real news will come from the Democratic Primaries where the top tier candidates we will see in tonight’s debate will be battling it out. Fairly quickly the lesser candidates will fall away. Their supporters will move to one of the survivors. Ideally for the party, a winning candidate will emerge fairly early, long before the convention. When that happens, for the first time, each party will be united behind one candidate.
For those interested in the functioning of the actual government, there is going to be very little to report. The House and Senate are doing nothing. Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader in the Senate has bottled up several hundred bills passed in the House and is simply refusing to allow them to be considered. That allows his fellow Republicans not to have to deal with legislation that they don’t want to pass. They fear that passage would help Democrats.
We do know that the presidential selection process will loom large. We know that President Trump, baring surprises, will be the Republican nominee. We should anticipate that he will do everything he can to appear “presidential”. He is said, for instance, to be trying to have another round of talks with Kim Jong Un of North Korea. We can expect a spate of stories about gaining money for the Great Wall of Mexico (so far, less than two miles of new wall have actually been built).
If they can get past impeachment, the Republicans know who their candidate will be. There will be no contest. The Democrats have to go through the difficult process of rejecting multiple candidates to arrive at one. It will be painful and politically undignified. Donald Trump will be waiting.
It will be a great year for politics!!
H.J. Rishel
1/14/2020
