Column by John M. Crisp | Here's how Trump could win, again, redux – New Castle News
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Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 63F. Winds light and variable.
Updated: June 13, 2024 @ 8:07 pm
Now, here’s a subject I never expected to revisit, but here we are, yet again, contemplating the prospect that Donald Trump might become president of the United States.
The first time I considered this notion was in a column in September 2016, entitled “Here’s Why Trump Could Win.”
I’d been to a lecture by a well-credentialed, self-described “internationally recognized authority on national security law.” Things started well enough. But soon the speaker began to make assertions that didn’t seem right and that subsequent research proved were just plain wrong.
The misinformation he was professing began to develop a pattern built around this notion: The world is a dangerous place under serious threat from mostly non-white enemies. He claimed to have predicted 9/11, and he asserted that America would soon suffer another terrorist attack with casualties amounting to 3 million rather than 3,000. Scary.
The speaker, however, concerned me less than his audience. They were mostly white, educated, successful, well-off retirees. America had been good to them. Their jobs had not been outsourced to other countries, and they had not suffered the declines that appeared at the time to encourage non-college-educated, blue-collar workers to rally around a man who promised to make America great again.
In fact, with their warm applause they approved a lecturer who, with considerable misinformation, painted a threatening world in which people who are different from us are to be feared and excluded.
In short, a world where Donald Trump could become president. And while I claim no particular powers of political prognostication, a few months later, he did.
Four years later, in October 2020, I wrote another column: “Here’s How Trump Could Win, Again.” I maintained that Trump’s four years in office had exacerbated the factors—fear, division, misinformation, external threat—that helped him win in 2016. We also had Pandemic 2020 to worry about, as well as rising awareness and concern about climate change.
Trump provided a soothing balm for the fears of many. The pandemic? Don’t worry, Trump said, “It’s going to disappear.” It did, of course, after a million Americans died.
And when Trump was challenged with climate change data during that year’s devastating wildfires in California, he was reassuring: “It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch.”
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This was patent nonsense, of course, but the power of comforting good news for a fearful audience should not be underestimated. Trump lost the election, but it was a close-run thing.
Four years later, we have the rematch that few expected. What are Trump’s chances?
The fact that the polls are close says a lot about Trump’s viability. One would imagine that a mendacious, infidelitous felon who has been indicted on a slew of serious charges, including attempting to reverse a legitimate election, would be lagging in the polls. On the contrary, Trump leads in a number of battleground states.
Furthermore, just as four years ago, the U.S. and the world are beset by seemingly unsolvable crises for which Trump claims to have the answers. Without specifics, he says that he could solve the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He would “quickly” end the war in Gaza. The economy will be booming in no time. The border “crisis” will be solved immediately. Climate change? Don’t worry. Things will cool off soon. You just watch.
This is all good news, and the appeal to voters of a rosy outlook shouldn’t be discounted, even if it’s unsupported by facts and logic.
Finally, I keep thinking about the audience at the lecture eight years ago, at a time when Trump was given little chance of winning. They seemed nearly to luxuriate in the threat that the “security expert” had on offer and keen to embrace a man who promises to fix everything quickly.
The size of this demographic is uncertain, but it’s clear that America is in an anxious, cranky mood, and that millions are eager for simple solutions and a “strong man” who can implement them.
How good are Trump’s chances? I wouldn’t bet against him.
(John M. Crisp, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, lives in Texas and can be reached at jcrispcolumns@gmail.com.)
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