The Turnout Election

As a “Demography is Destiny” type of guy, my default view is that the 2020 election should be a cakewalk for the Democrats.  All Democrats have to do is not be crazy…but that seems like a high bar.

Katie Pavlich reports at Townhall on President Trump’s New Jersey rally from last Tuesday and the statistics gathered by the Trump campaign are interesting.

The analysis of the most important states don’t look good for the President but the data gathered by Brad Parscale at this most recent (and other) Trump rallies is encouraging.  This is going to be a turnout election, one in which the Democrats won’t be caught sleeping again like they were in 2016.  For Trump to win he needs not only to get everyone who voted for him previously, but also to add a lot more new voters. It’s easy to get voters like me to show up at the polls; I’m engaged and will be voting rain or shine, but most Americans are not engaged, or even registered to vote.  Getting those people to the polls is a big ask, but absolutely necessary if Trump is going to have any chance of winning.

And then there is the part of Parscale’s tweet that goes back to the first thing I mentioned in this post, not being crazy.  26.3% of the attendees of Trump’s New Jersey rally were Democrats. If the Democrats are really serious in purging every non-woke Democrat out of the party, they can’t win.  Of course we are early in the primary season now, where crazy is a premium; but for how long?  The longer the Democrats remain crazy the better Trump’s chances are.

Iran with Egg on its Face

What a difference a week makes!  Since I last wrote about the drone killing of Quds Force commander General Soleimani, we’ve gone through press hysterics unmatched since Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court.  The draft and World War III trended on twitter as the media primed up young people to be very afraid that the cost of their student loans was conscription into Trump’s war machine.  Even the creaky anti-war movement, in a coma since the election of President Obama, roused from its slumber to beclown itself in cities across the world.

Instead, the entire crisis played out in Trump’s favor.  Iran fired Ballistic missiles at two US bases in Iraq, with no US casualties; then declared their revenge over. Meanwhile scores of Iranians were killed in a bizarre stampede at Soleimani’s funeral and Iran Air Defense, using a SA-15 air defense system, shot down a Ukrainian jet liner, killing more Iranians as well as people all over the world, but no Americans.  So while the world is trying to get answers from Iran as to what happened, Trump is back on the golf course, crisis over.

The only hanging chad over the Trump response is the claim that there were imminent attacks against four other embassies in the area, a claim that was apparently not made during the classified briefing to Congress.  That is the sole issue that the MSM was left with to tangle with Trump administration officials on the Sunday morning talk shows.  After promising World War III, if that’s all you got, then it’s hard to see how this issue isn’t a victory for Trump.

Personally I think the “imminent threat” claim was just something Trump ad-libbed during the Laura Ingraham interview.  But I have to admit I don’t really care about it, because an “imminent threat” isn’t a necessity for taking out a terrorist.  We didn’t need an “imminent threat” to take out al-Baghdadi or Bin Ladin; they were terrorists who had an ample list of charges against the US for terrorism, and so did Soleimani.

With Suleimani, a Trump Gambit in the Middle East

The killing of Quds Force commander Qassim Suleimani by a US drone has lit a fire not only with the Iranians, but with their allies in the United States; the Democrats and their mouthpieces in the media.  I’ve had a lot of fun this weekend arguing this issue on social media, with the left clearly painting this as Trump’s attempt to plunge us into World War III.  For me, when it comes to terrorists, I like the idea that if you hit us, we hit you back.  But I guess that might not be a very progressive view of dealing with state sponsored terror.  The progressive view is to send pallets of cash to terrorist regimes, because nothing says “that’ll teach you” like paying off terrorists.But part of the natural backlash of such a move was this:

Iraqi parliament calls for US troops to be expelled

The Iraqi parliament passed a resolution Sunday calling for the government to expel foreign troops from the country in the wake of an U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian general, raising questions about the future of the allied mission that has successfully fought the “Islamic State,” or ISIS, in recent years.       

The resolution asks Iraq’s government to cancel the request for assistance from the U.S.-led coalition operating in the country against the “Islamic State,” which once controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria before allied intervention.

“The government commits to revoke its request for assistance from the international coalition fighting Islamic State due to the end of military operations in Iraq and the achievement of victory,” the resolution read.

“The Iraqi government must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason.”

Given a majority Shia population, this is not much of surprise.  There are a lot of Iranian sympathizers inside Iraq and they hold considerable political power.  This is one of those unintended consequences that has the establishment and the neo-con Never Trumpers screaming at the top of their lungs, “stupid Trump is getting us kicked out of Iraq!  Arrgghh  Acck!”

Or is it unintended?

I don’t claim to know Trump’s mind on this, but killing a terrorist who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans while at the same time being forced to leave Iraq sounds like a win/win for Team Trump.  They want out of the Middle East and have been engaging in a struggle with the permanent government that wants to maintain and expand our military presence there. Now it’s possible they will be given no choice in the matter.  We have to respect the wishes of a sovereign state right?

Assuming that’s what Iraq wishes.  It’s unclear whether this is a show put on by the Iraq government for domestic consumption or if they’re really serious.  Maybe they think this gives them a position to bargain for more money, more aid, or more something else.  If so, they might be surprised that Trump might well simply bow to Iraq’s public wishes and withdraw American troops, and the protection they provide, fulfilling another campaign promise as a consequence.

 

Predictions for 2020

I had a pretty good prediction run for 2019 so hopefully I can continue that; however it’s an election year so everything should be extra crazy.  So with that in mind, I present my 2020 predictions.

Reparations will be on the Democratic Platform

After several of the Democratic Presidential candidates came out in support of reparations, it’s hard to imagine that this year reparations wouldn’t finally make the platform somehow.

There will be an independent never-Trump candidate in the race

I don’t know how well-funded he or she would be, but for the purpose of sapping GOP votes from Trump to throw the election to the Democrats, there will be an effort to promote someone to give the several hundred never-Trumpers some voting alternative.

Joe Biden will not be the Democratic Nominee.

I’ve been saying it for months, in spite of his rather constant lead near the top of the polls, but the issue is that ultimately, it’s not the gaffes, but the fact that the gaffes will look more and more like dementia rather than “that’s just Joe.”  I think the Democrats would prefer a crazed socialist to an obviously mentally failing “moderate.”

There will be an additional impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives this year to consider new impeachment charges.

This of course, is the action of a crazed opposition, but that’s where we are, so I’m confident the House will consider new charges for impeachment.

There will be a Supreme Court vacancy this year.

Even though the Supreme Court prediction burned me last year, I guess I’m a moth driven to the flame on this, so I’m going to say that either due to retirement or death or disablement, there will be an opening.

There will be some sort of Brexit this year.

Democrats will retain control of the House.

Republicans will retain control of the Senate.

 

 

You may notice that I didn’t make a prediction on who wins the Presidency.  In 2016 I held off until August…and got it wrong.  My prediction on what makes the difference in the race is that this will be a turn out election; whoever gets their people to the polls in high enough numbers will win, and as of now, Democrats tend to dominate the ground game.

 

Also, a not quite prediction:

I wouldn’t really say this is a prediction, both because it’s outside the one year window of this post and because at this point it’s more guess than prediction, but this could move up to a full blown prediction in the future (but that’s just a prediction).

Notre Dame, when rebuilt, will have some sort of Islamic imagery included.