THE LANDSLIDE OF 2020?
Today I got in the mail a new book by our friend David Horowitz:
I haven’t had time to read it yet, of course, but David is one of the most perceptive observers of the current scene. You can order Blitz from Amazon.
Politico is on the other side of the aisle and is much less friendly to the president. So it was a little surprising to see this headline: “‘We’re thinking landslide’: Beyond D.C., GOP officials see Trump on glide path to reelection.”
Interviews with more than 50 state, district and county Republican Party chairs depict a version of the electoral landscape that is no worse for Trump than six months ago — and possibly even slightly better. According to this view, the coronavirus is on its way out and the economy is coming back. Polls are unreliable, Joe Biden is too frail to last, and the media still doesn’t get it.
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This year, [Phillip Stephens, GOP chairman in Robeson County, N.C.] said, “We’re thinking landslide.”
I don’t know about a landslide, but I too think the ground is shifting in Trump’s favor. In January, I thought he was a 99% lock for re-election on a record of peace and prosperity. Then the Wuhan virus came along, and state shutdowns devastated the economy. Next, while peace reigns abroad, left-wing rioters, looters and arsonists have destroyed it at home. But as usual, the Democrats can’t help themselves. They have gone much too far with absurd proposals to abolish the police, and with essentially insane attacks on white people–who, last time I looked, comprise two-thirds of the electorate. And I do think you have to get outside of D.C. to get a sense of the electorate’s mood.
The current environment reminds me of 1972, and a conversation I had then with a friend who was, like me at that time, on the left. The contest then was between Nixon and McGovern, and my friend said, “Nixon will win because he is for America, and McGovern is against America.” He and I didn’t see it that way, but we knew that was how the race was coming across to most voters. That is true in spades this year: McGovern was wrong about a lot of things, but he was a sincere patriot. Today’s Democrats, in contrast, really are against America. The country has slipped since 1972, but I still don’t think that hostility to one’s own country is a winning platform.
Watch for it: on November 4, it will once again be Republicans singing “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
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