Seeing with 2020 Vision

A couple days ago on his Facebook page, my friend Wynne McLaughlin posted an op-ed from the Washington Post, written by Doug Sosnik, a Democratic political strategist who worked for President Clinton for six years.  The commentary concerns the next presidential race in 2020, and its title gives you the clear point -- "Trump is on track to win re-election."

As you might imagine, the article drew a lot of horrified comments.  And it's hard not to imagine why.

(You can find the whole thing here, though it may be behind their paywall.  Since I have a subscription, I don't know if the Post gives a certain number of free article per month.)

After reading the article, while I think every Democrat (and American citizen) should take this presumption to heart as the way to act, I also think it's not an piece that one needs take as gospel -- for a lot of reasons.  Here are just a few:
 
First, Doug Sosnik is a political strategist, and an accomplished one, and is overwhelmingly more experienced than I am beyond levels of comparison -- however he offers no data to back up his opinion. It's just opinion.  Now, mind you, it's thoughtful, experienced opinion.  But I expect opinion to be supported to give it the most value, no matter how experienced.
 
Second, he's pretty dismissive about approval numbers for Trump, tossing them off as being "low."   The thing is, they aren't just low, but historically low.  The AP poll on Friday had a new poll that had Trump at 32%.  And it's not just that it's that low, but it's gone lower since the previous poll, which was incredibly low.
 
Third, the author looks at Trump's approval polls in context of those that took place in the presidential campaign which he ended up winning.  However, polls taken today are THOROUGHLY DIFFERENT from polls during the election. Polls today aren't based on people upset at "politics as usual" and voicing their personal hurt or protest, they're based instead on looking at Trump's actual track record as president.
 
Fourth, Mr. Sosnik ignores the critical aspect in any election of "enthusiasm" and "get out the vote."  Opponents of Trump are livid, outraged and have been aggressively active and organized since the inauguration, to the point of having The Resistance coordinated as an actual movement, getting millions of people to simply march in protest.  Supporters of Trump have literally no passed-legislation to point that can get them excited to go out and vote.  The health care repeal failed, there's been no tax cuts, there is no Wall, even the Muslim travel ban has been blocked by the courts.   Democrats are likely to be heavily organized for a get-out-the-vote.  Republicans are more likely to be pissed off and stay at home. There isn't even Trump on the ballot, and when he heavily endorsed a sitting senator in totally-red Alabama for their GOP primary, the other candidate won.
 
Fifth, very importantly, keep in mind that we're only NINE MONTHS into this administration. And Trump's approval is already down to 32%.  I challenge anyone to show me evidence of why Trump -- with literally NO expertise or qualifications for the job -- will turn things around to make things better over the next three years (if he lasts that long), and how he'll be aided to improve things by surrounding himself with The Best people to help him, as his second-rate cabinet and those around him get fired or leave.  As more people likely leave, what actually-good people would want to join this administration and destroy their own reputations?  Not just because the administration is having problems getting things done, but it is in the midst of three investigations, and will be drawing closer to criminal charges being filed.

And I'll add a sixth point that isn't even addressed in the op-ed.  And it's that we know that Trump received significant boosts from Russia in getting elected, whether directly complicit or totally unknowing.  Even accepting ignorance and even putting aside the possibility of hacking having had any influence (not just on casting votes, which is not probable though possible, but on registration rolls which is far more likely), we know for certain that there was duplicitous social media engineering by Russia -- because the companies where it occurred openly acknowledge it.  And although it's likely that such Russian efforts will occur again in 2020, the country, intelligence services and social media platforms are substantively more informed and aware, making that far more difficult to have the same high level of benefits, let alone nearly as much.
 
There's more, but those are the basics.  That said, again, I fully agree that no one should take Trump losing as a given, and the presumption should be that he absolutely *could* win.  That's the starting point and nothing should be taken for granted.  Things can change.  If a war is declared, that could rally people (or, to be fair, horrify them.)  But to say that Trump would well put an electoral base together and win re-election -- presuming he's still in office -- is vastly different from saying he's "on track" to win.  Without question, most-especially after the results of 2016, people should not remotely confuse their hatred for Trump and his pathetically low poll numbers today as taking for granted that this will inform the next race and Trump doesn't have a chance.  That is a fool's mission.  They should base their actions on understanding fully that as president, Trump can very well win re-election and use the horror of that absolutely real possibility to fuel their aggressive efforts.  And never let up for one second.

However, they shouldn't take that possibility as panic, which causes one to shrink in fear and act irrationally, but as clear-eyed, focused admonition.