Can Trump win using the same tactics and strategy from 2016? In his first rally of the 2020 campaign in Orlando which was held on Tuesday, it seemed as if he didn’t stray from his previous scenario. If the campaign speeches, bluster and bullshit are the same as in 2016, will he be able to hold his base for the next seventeen months and bring some of the swing voters over to his banner? Won’t people get tired of what’s old hat, playing the same game with even the same words. The only new aspect of his speech at the rally was his hammering of Mueller and his team of “Democrats” and the report they produced. Of course, Mueller was not available to be demonized in 2016.
Trump spend an inordinate amount of time castigating Hillary and her missing emails, eliciting cries from the crowd of lock her up. But as far as we know, Hillary isn’t even running this time around, though she beat Trump in the popular vote last time. Oh, that was because of the three million illegal immigrants who must have voted for her, according to Trump. He actually won in a landslide. Can Trump keep harping on Hillary and her emails over and over again and get his base to respond exuberantly.
The problem is that Trump doesn’t have any policy achievements to brag about aside from the tax cut which benefited the one percent more than his supporters. Does he really want to keep bringing that up? Sure, the economy is good at the moment, but who knows what it’ll be like in seventeen months from now? And the economy was booming under Obama as well, before Trump stepped into the White House and claimed the economic expansion as his own.
And none of the promises that Trump made in 2016 have come to fruition. There’s no wall at our southern border and the Mexicans aren’t going to pay for one. Immigration has increased since Trump was elected president instead of being better controlled. Our troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan and may soon be in Iran if Trump’s advisers have their way. And no money has been allocated for our infrastructure which continues to deteriorate. Trump also promised to eliminate the budget deficits and national debt during his first term. Instead of these at least diminishing, they both have been soaring. And there appears to be no plan on the table to bring them under control.
So where do we go from here? Can Trump continue to bamboozle his base and other voters that his plans for his next term will actually bring his old old promises into existence? Voters may be naïve but can they be fooled again by a buffoon in the White House who has learned nothing about governing in his first term? The Americans at his Orlando rally certainly made it seem as if they’ve learned nothing about Trump and still worship at his alter. Will it continue for another seventeen months or finally get tired?
Resurrecting Democracy
www.robertlevinebooks.com
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020