Who Is the Next President?

Caveat: I can’t predict the future, so of course I don’t know the answer to the title question. But for sheer entertainment, let’s speculate anyway.

It looks to me as if, absurdly, Trump is likely the next U.S. President. Let’s see why.

1. Who Will Be the Republican Nominee?

Trump

The Republicans are going to nominate Trump. He is way ahead of any of the other contenders currently being discussed, like with 2 or 3 times as much support as the 2nd place candidate (DeSantis). (See RealClearPolitics.)

Objection: As Karl Rove recently pointed out, it’s early in the process, and it has often happened that the frontrunner at this stage of the process totally went down shortly after the primaries began.

Reply: Yes, but we have more evidence about Trump at this point than we usually have about a candidate. We know that he won the nomination and the Presidency in 2016, that he was reasonably close to winning in 2020, that he has many fanatical followers, and nothing in particular has happened to change that following.

Sure, he was indicted for something to do with Stormy Daniels, but no Republican voter gives two craps about that. They don’t even care that he recently lost a lawsuit for sexual assault. We can assume that these things won’t make a difference in the primaries, because they don’t reveal anything different about his character from what we all already knew, and they haven’t affected his poll numbers.

I also don’t see how any of the Republican challengers are going to do anything different from what his challengers did in 2016, so I don’t see why he wouldn’t just do a repeat performance. The electorate hasn’t changed that much since 2016, so his tactics will probably work again.

Ron DeSantis

Perhaps most tellingly, Trump’s leading rival is too scared to criticize him. Normally, if your political rival has a felony indictment after announcing his candidacy, you seize that opportunity to expose how he is unfit for office. Instead, Ron DeSantis, Trump’s leading supposed rival, rushed to Trump’s defense, calling the indictment unAmerican and promising not to extradite Trump from Florida. I don’t see how you can possibly win a political campaign if you take your opponent’s side. So I don’t see how DeSantis can win.

By the way, it’s possible to acknowledge that the New York DA’s indictment is politically motivated and that Trump is into lots of illegal and immoral crap. And that he has done far more worrisome things, for which he is also likely to be indicted. (See the Georgia case.) If I were running against Trump, I’d be hammering that.

If Trump weren’t running, maybe DeSantis would get the nomination. But DeSantis is largely appealing to the same group of people as Trump, except he’s a less Trumpian candidate. I just can’t see Trumpsters forsaking real Trump for fake Trump.

Needless to say, DeSantis would be much better than Trump as a President, as would nearly anyone else. I just don’t think he can get the nomination.

Mike Pence

Come on. Outside of Indiana, Pence’s only claim to fame is being Trump’s VP. Whom Trump has disavowed. So neither Trumpsters nor never-Trumpers will like him. I suppose a few Republicans who used to like Trump but turned against him around Jan. 6 might support Pence.

Even if it weren’t for that, he’s among the most boring candidates I’ve ever seen.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Possibly the best of the candidates who are running, he’s basically a libertarian, by his own account. (See his interview with John Stossel.) He also founded and ran a successful biotech company, which shows a lot more useful skills than being a lawyer like most other politicians. However, I also think he has very little chance in the primaries.

He’s another guy who is afraid to criticize Trump. In the Stossel interview and elsewhere, he praises Trump and says he wants to take Trump’s agenda further. Okay, that could appeal to voters if Trump wasn’t running. But if you’re a voter who loves Trump’s agenda, and Trump is running, why would you vote for this guy rather than Trump himself? So I don’t see him getting votes from either pro- or anti-Trump voters.

I also (perhaps cynically) doubt that the Republican base would nominate anyone named “Ramaswamy”.

Nikki Haley

Outside of South Carolina, her main claim to fame is being Trump’s ambassador to the UN. She has also been reluctant to criticize Trump, though not as reluctant as other candidates. E.g., see her Wall Street Journal editorial:

“Most of Mr. Trump's major policies were outstanding and made America stronger, safer and more prosperous. Many of his actions since the election were wrong and will be judged harshly by history...I will gladly defend the bulk of the Trump record and his determination to shake up the corrupt status quo in Washington.”

I just don’t see “Trump is mainly good but there just a few bad things he did” as a winning message in a campaign against Trump. Trump is not going to pull his punches like that. I guess that could appeal to people who are in the middle on Trump, neither strongly pro- nor strongly anti-. People who have a nuanced, intellectual view, who support Trump policies but not his personality. Which is to say, hardly anyone.

And if you’re thinking that Republican voters just put up with Trump’s horrible personality because they like his policies, get real. As if mere policy preferences could explain the fanatical devotion in the face of personal problems that would destroy any other politician. As if we haven’t had anti-immigrant candidates before. No, they love Trump’s horrible personality. That’s the core attraction, the one thing that differentiates Trump from other candidates.

Aside: I assume Haley is lying, just like Tucker Carlson and most of the other right-wingers who pretend to support Trump. I.e., she knows that Trump is corrupt and makes America weaker but she’s afraid to speak honestly.

2. Who Will Be the Democratic Nominee?

Obviously, it will be Joe Biden. Hard to believe, but here we are. Even Bernie Sanders has rejected the idea of challenging Biden for the nomination, I guess because he thinks it would weaken Biden and make a Trump victory more likely.

Kennedy is challenging Biden for the nomination (that’s Robert F. Kennedy, not John T. Kennedy), but it’s unheard of for a challenger to beat a sitting President for the nomination of his party. Kennedy would need to be amazingly charismatic and beloved, which he isn’t. He’s unknown to almost everyone, apart from his decision just now to challenge Biden. He can argue that Biden’s health is a major problem, but that probably won’t work well on voters, because when he speaks, Kennedy himself does not sound at all healthy. (Though in fact his condition apparently does not affect anything other than his voice.)

I also doubt that Kennedy’s history as an anti-vaxxer would go down well with Democratic voters, even if he wasn’t running against the sitting President.

I had been hoping that Democratic party insiders would convince Joe not to run again, so they could nominate someone who had a better chance of winning. But apparently they failed, or perhaps didn’t even try.

Objection: Steve Forbes predicts that despite his announcement, Joe Biden still won’t run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSJhgs-POtw
But I just can’t see Biden making the announcement and then pulling out. Unless his health takes a major turn for the worse.

3. Trump vs. Biden: The Rematch

Who will win the rematch?

Arguments favoring Biden

1. Biden won last time.

   Reply: Yes, but by a small margin. If Trump had gotten another 43,000 votes in the right states (optimally distributed), he would have won. (Source) Note: The difference in the popular vote was about 7 million. But that’s not what matters. The Electoral College is what matters, and flipping 43k votes in swing states would have flipped the EC. So the outcome would plausibly be flipped by any significant factors that have changed in Trump’s favor. Which we discuss below.

2. Since the 2020 election, Trump did more bad shit, especially stuff relating to January 6.

   Reply: Yes, but Trump-supporters don’t seem to give a crap. Only people who were already against Trump seem to care. (I seriously don’t know what the hell Trump would have to do to lose supporters. If he was caught on video handing over the nuclear launch codes to Putin in exchange for $50, MAGA Republicans would just say, “What about Hunter Biden’s laptop?”)

3. Trump has been indicted on some felony counts, and more are probably coming.

   Reply: Ditto.

   However, I think there is one way that this could work. If Trump is actually sent to jail, I assume that would stop him from being elected President again. It’ll be hard to run a campaign from a jail cell. (Though I assume most Trumpsters would still support him.) Also, if he spends a huge amount of time in court, I suppose that might distract from campaigning enough to give him a big disadvantage.

   The Stormy Daniels prosecution will almost surely fail (and thereupon strengthen Trump). But the Georgia prosecution might succeed (that’s where Trump was taped trying to get the Georgia secretary of state to falsify the vote count from Georgia in 2020). I’m not sure that’ll succeed, though, since Trump seems to basically get away with anything.

Arguments favoring Trump

1. Inflation. I’m pasting a graph of the inflation rate from 2016 to 2023. Notice how it was low throughout Trump’s Presidency, then doubled or tripled since Biden took office.

   

   Unemployment and GDP numbers look fine, though. I paste those below too.

   

   

2. Biden’s positions. In 2016, Biden was viewed as a moderate, which is probably a large part of how he won. This time around, Trump will have an easier time painting Biden as a woke extremist, or at least a puppet of woke extremists. E.g., he’ll be able to say that Biden chooses Supreme Court nominees based on their sex and skin color, because Biden himself told us that. Most Americans, even most Democrats, and especially moderate, swing voters, are against that.

3. The elephant in the room: Biden’s health. He’s clearly showing cognitive decline, much more clearly than he was in 2020, which is not surprising for an 80-year-old. In case you haven’t noticed this, here are some clips:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=087UC0i4_Xc

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZGMKGa02EA

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2BuaS8W2bo

   1. In the first clip, Biden explains that, “America is a nation that can be defined in a single word: asufutimaehaehfutbw.” (I think he forgot to say the single word, then tried to start the next sentence and fumbled over it.)

   2. In the second clip, Biden can be heard to ask:

      “Tell me how you do that. Now, I understand it. [mumble] It’s clear on its face. You’re accurate. But how, and making the case, of the freedom men have, what do you do to, other than to, sort of embarrass men into getting into the, into the argument and voting the right way. On this issue.”

   3. The third clip is Biden’s own appeal for donations for his 2024 campaign. Notice that he slightly slurs his words, which he did not do in 2020. The fact that he can’t avoid slurred speech even in a 12-second ad that he could take his time on and do multiple takes of, really shows that he’s not up for another 4 years. In view of this, how the hell is Biden supposed to face Trump in a live debate?

How will these things affect the election? Few people would change from voting Democrat to voting Republican. But it’s plausible that a significant number of moderates who voted Democrat last time will stay home next time, due to discomfort with voting for either unfit candidate.

4. What Should Everyone Do?

Biden

Biden should drop out and find someone charismatic to endorse. Failing that, he should run this ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JONzK-AUzro.

He should then refuse to debate, without explaining why (or give some bullshit explanation; politicians are good at that).

The Democratic and Republican Parties

The two major parties seriously need to overhaul their nomination process. Party elites should have a much larger role and dumb, extremist voters a much smaller role. They should just change the rules to prevent their parties from being hijacked. Let people like Trump or Sanders run as third party candidates if they like.

Trump

Trump should confess to his crimes, drop out of the race, and turn himself in for punishment.

Voters

Given that none of the above things are going to happen, I guess voters should vote for Biden anyway? (Again, the above proposed Biden campaign ad makes the case more eloquently than I could hope to.)