Will Trump Win? No...

I covered this in May...time to revisit the theory of Professor Allan Lichtman who has successfully predicted the last nine US presidential elections.  

Lichtman's model is simple - if any six of these questions are seen as False, the sitting president will lose. 

1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nominations.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8. Social unrest: There’s no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10. Foreign/ military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11. Foreign/ military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Let's look again to see if Trump will be re-elected according to this model. I'll note changes in RED.

1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.

The Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives - False

2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nominations.

There are no serious competitors to Trump, however, some Republicans have organized media campaigns against him which is unprecedented - True/False

Change to False. The opposition to Trump from well-organized Republicans, such as those behind the Lincoln Project, is likely more significant than having someone run against him to be the nominee.

3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.

Trump is the president - True 

4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

There is no third party or independent challenger of note - True

5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

The economy will be in recession - False

6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

The growth is above the mean for the two previous terms - True...however, the effects of COVID 19 may mask this entirely...a weaker than normal indicator.  

7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

There have been major policy changes - True

8. Social unrest: There’s no sustained social unrest during the term.

The George Lloyd's murder may result in sustained unrest, but we will not know for months - True

Change to False - There is continuing social unrest in many places in the United States. This will explode if Trump and the Republicans ram through a new Supreme Court nominee in the weeks before the election. 

9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

The entire administration has been a scandal - impeachment will hurt Trump here - False

10. Foreign/ military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

The foreign policy pursued by Trump has seen no major failures - True

11. Foreign/ military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

Trump has launched no wars but renewing NAFTA was a major foreign policy success, as was the recent peace deal in the Middle East - True

12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

Trump is a hero to tens of millions/a vagabond to tens of millions - no American president has ever worked so hard to divide his country - True/False

Change to True - Trump is adored by his supporters. Still, the level of hatred is matched by his opponents - a weaker than normal indicator.

13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Biden has charisma - False

The totals...

True - 7 (2 are weak)
False - 6

My review of Lichtman's model suggests that Trump will lose the next presidential election.  

 

Advice to Statue Topplers Everywhere

Sir John A Macdonald's statue in Montreal was toppled by demonstrators a few days ago.  

That was a criminal act.

Some advice from a previous rebel who also felt similarly entitled...

"If you must break the law, do it to seize power. Otherwise, observe it." - Caesar

 

Biden' Response to Trump

Biden has an excellent response to Trump's allegation that Americans will not be safe in Biden's America. In fact, it is Trump's America that is falling apart, by design...see here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2e35AbLP_Y

While the response is excellent, you need to understand that this interaction with the utterly indigestible Anderson Cooper was staged. We learned about how closely the Clinton News Network works with the Democrats from Wikileaks - this no doubt continues. The soft-ball questions that were asked would have been arranged or provided in advance.

Worse than that, if you look closely, you will see that Biden is actually reading from a teleprompter. This suggests that he and his political advisors may not think he can handle even a simple interview by a favourable news source unaided.

Biden looked very good in his speech at the DNC, but if I were a Democrat supporter in the USA, I would be wondering how this guy is going to debate Donald Trump.

Fact - Biden is a much-reduced man compared to who he was even five years ago. Then again, FDR was almost dead when he won his last election and managed to win America's greatest war.

Biden

Short commentary...

Biden made the speech I had hoped he would make. It was all about unity and an end to hate. It was inspirational - maybe the best speech he has ever given.

However, he was obviously pushing as hard as he could to stay on top for 25 minutes. He did well - I counted only eight very slight missteps. Nonetheless, I think that speech will be the most energy we will see from Biden from this point onward.

I shudder to think what he will be like in the third year of a mandate. He needs to commit to only staying for one term of office.

Note - Including both the Pervert Clinton and the Crooked Clinton as part of the Democratic National Convention was painful to watch. Biden needs to be forthright enough to tell them to go away. This is his party now.

The Trump Doctrine and COVID-19

He underplayed the pandemic risk for months on end, blowing chances of isolating the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA early on.

He wrongly predicted the demise of the pandemic numerous times, lulling people into a false sense of ease.

He decried the use of masks, and refused to be seen using one for months, and he supports anti-maskers.

He has held mass gatherings where people did not social distance or wear masks.

He undercuts virtually all of his scientific advisors - especially Fauci - pushing conspiracy theory-based treatments and perspectives which, if followed, would actually kill people.

He blames the recent massive spread of the disease on testing...as in, the USA tests so much more than any other country that the Americans naturally find more COVID-19 than any other country, the implication being that there is no real issue.

He refuses to lead on this issue, preferring distractions such as his growing confrontation with China.

People wonder at his intelligence - why ignore taking steps that other countries are doing successfully worldwide, and the best scientific advice? 

He is not nuts - I think Trump knows exactly what he is doing, which is this...

Trump's sole focus is on November 3, 2020. Present opinion polls indicate that he has a less than a 10% chance of winning re-election. Because of this, he needs a different strategy from that of "being elected" to stay in office. This is where COVID-19 comes in.

Trump has recently indicated that he may try to delay the election because of COVID-19. This is related to his concern that the related use of more mail-in ballots means mass fraud, as more COVID-19 = more mail-in ballots = a stronger accusation of fraud. Both the delay gambit and allegation of a fraudulent election could potentially keep him in office regardless of the outcome of the vote.

This strategy only works if the pandemic is still raging in November.  If America has dealt well with the pandemic by then, then the vote would not be delayed and there would be no basis for increased use of mail-in ballots, so there would be less of a basis for Trump to challenge the vote based on claims of mail-in fraud.

COVID-19, like the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that he has been actively encouraging and making even more violent, is therefore his political friend. 

And so, Trump's COVID-19 strategy should be obvious - he has been doing whatever he can to keep the pandemic raging across the country, because this is the basis of his "Plan B" strategy for staying in office should he not win the vote itself.  

Unlike any previous American president, he is willing to do things that others have never been willing to do. This includes purposely dividing his country on race lines, and stoking the flames of a pandemic knowing it will kill tens of thousands of people as part of a strategy to try to stay in power.

Trump has no doubt already instructed A.G. Barr to prepare documentation to bring legal proceedings to contest the election, based on the the fact that he will claim main-in-ballot fraud, no matter what happens with COVID-19. 

Although Republicans have so far said that a delay to the election is not on, expect Mitch McConnell to start to soon start to voice his opinion that the election should be delayed...a shameless sycophant is always a shameless sycophant.

The Trump Doctrine is to focus only on Power at Any Price through Any Method, at the expense of everything else.

There has never been an American President like this man. 

Stoned!!!

Trump commuted Stone's sentence, as predicted.

Mueller broke his silence to defend Stone's prosecution, which was based on the reality that lying to the police is a crime, literally everywhere on Earth. 

Recall - Stone lied to the FBI and obstructed their investigation into Russia's and Wikileak's involvement in a conspiracy to subvert American democracy on behalf of Trump. Stone was convicted, not by the Democrats; not by the FBI and Mueller; not by an Obama judicial appointee; but by a jury of his peers.

That jury is certain to speak out to voice its opinion that Stone was properly convicted.

Will Trump attack even these normal Americans, who as citizens, weighed the evidence against Stone and convicted him beyond a reasonable doubt? 

Of course he will! "FAKE JURY!!!"

The Russia "hoax" that Trump and Fox are constantly harping on is the apparent "lie" that Russia perverted American democracy by intervening on behalf of Trump in 2016.

Here is what happened in 2016...this needs to be quoted...

"...there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.... 

The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election.... 

The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election."

This quote is NOT from the Mueller Report. It is from Attorney General William Barr's Summary of that Report. 

In his Summary, Barr went to great lengths to explain that there was no conclusive evidence that Trump participated in the "obstruction of democracy". But nowhere in his summary does Barr question the essential findings of the Mueller Report, which is that Russia interfered in the last presidential election on Trump's behalf.

Be warned! Barr apparently counselled Trump to not commute Stone's sentence. One has to think that even Barr's days as a Trump Lackey are now numbered!

Say "Hello!" to Attorney General Giuliani!

(Merci to the Newyorker magazine)

 

Will Trump Resign THIS WEEK?

Here is the argument.

The United States Supreme Court decides this week if he has to release his tax returns. Those tax returns will likely outline financial arrangements that are deeply entwined with Russia.

Why does Trump meet Putin for hours at a time at secret meetings where no notes are taken?

Why does he mimic Putin in denying what every US intelligence service has confirmed, which is that that Russia deeply influenced that last presidential election in his favour?

Why has he invited Russia back into the G-7, in spite of their aggression in Ukraine, and their targeting of his own country's military personnel via bounties paid to the Taliban?

Why?

Because Trump has been Putin's Bitch for decades.

Trump was bankrupt in the early 1990's - by his own admission, he was a billion dollars in the hole. 

He was a billionaire again by the mid-1990s, a few short years later, during a time that just happened to coincide with the break up of the Soviet Union and the rise of the Oligarchs. 

His tax records will likely show that he received hundreds of millions of dollars in Russian money over those years - he was a money laundering machine for citizens of America's historic enemy who were raping their own country.

He can't survive politically in information like this comes out, which is why he has fought the release of his tax records all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

If that Court orders the immediate release of those records, expect him to "...go out on top....like a winner!"

What if one of the most corrupt men in American history, a criminal, and a traitor has been running the USA for the last four years?

Oh...another tidbit...Trump's efforts on behalf of the Russians would have occurred in New York City. 

Who was the mayor of that city during those years?