Top Lines: US Economy And Trade Policy | 2020 Election And Political Analysis | Coronavirus Crisis | Impeachment | Protecting Our Elections And Disinformation | Immigration And The Border | Countering Illiberalism's Rise

New Webinars/Discussions - We’ve just scheduled a new “NDN Talks” event this coming Friday with Frank Foer, author of a new compelling Atlantic essay on Russia and the 2020 elections.  It is very timely given Trump’s new “Obamagate” obsession.  As well, NDN will be talking with Rep. Derek Kilmer of Washington State next Friday, May 29^th.  Simon’s last two May showings of our ambitious new deck “With Democrats Things Get Better” are this Wednesday, May 20^th and next Wednesday, May 27^th - both at 2pm.  You can get more information or register for any of these webinars/talks here. 

Notes On 2020 - Donald Trump has long feared Joe Biden.  He hatched a vast, illegal conspiracy to extort “dirt” on the Bidens from the Ukrainian government - an illegal plot which got him rightfully impeached and should have ended his Presidency.  Faced with weak poll numbers for himself and incumbent GOP Senators, the President now appears to be panicking - and is not just rolling out ridiculous arguments against the former Vice President, but also has launched a sustained attack against Barack Obama, a political figure far more popular and virtuous than he.  As a longtime political analyst, it doesn’t make any sense to me why he would begin attacking Obama or bring up his illicit relationship with Putin - but little Trump does makes sense to me.  And that’s because despite the bluster he actually isn’t very good at being President or winning over the voters he needs to win. 

This organization has never subscribed to the “Trump has magical powers” school of political analysis.  In 2016, Trump won with just 46% of the vote and only with the help of three extraordinary, hard to replicate events - Russia’s huge intervention on his behalf, Jill Stein’s just good enough candidacy, and the Comey letter which dropped Clinton’s lead from 6 to 2 points in the last days of the election.  When Trump led Republicans into battle in 2017, 2018, and 2019, the Rs had near worst case election results each time.  In 2018, the Democrats won the House by 8.6 points (53.4-44.8), a huge margin; and in 2019, the Dems won the governorships in KY and LA, two deep red Southern states.  As NDN’s Chris Taylor wrote recently, 2020 looks and feels a lot more like 2018 than it does 2016 - which is why Trump has begun to panic.  He’s never actually performed well in an election and he isn’t going to win in 2020 with 45-46% of the vote, his vote share in both the 2016 and 2018 elections and a place he is struggling to return to in national and battleground state polls right now. 

Perhaps no event captures Trump’s failures more than his historically inept, reckless response to COVID-19. There is simply no easy way to explain his delay in engaging the virus, his lack of a sustained or understandable response, his repeated undermining of strategies which are working, or his promotion of dangerous, untested remedies.  We are re-opening the country now without most states hitting Trump’s own published criteria for re-opening, and we still don’t have the basic things that we as a nation need - a national testing/tracing regime and strategies for safe domestic travel/business protocols - in place.  We are just re-opening.  Our new infection rate per capita remains among the highest in the world, up there with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and the UK; and while testing has improved, the US is still only around 40^th in the world in per capita testing - a very, very low number given that the virus may have spread further and deeper in the US than in any other country in the world. And of course the nation is looking at Great Depression level unemployment rates and banana republic levels of debt. 

As bad as his day-to-day management of COVID has been, his political management of it has also been an extraordinary failure.  Many polls and analyses have captured this failure, but let’s look at new numbers out this morning from the Navigating Coronavirus project:

Trump’s handling of coronavirus - 41% approve, 55% disapprove

Has Trump’s management of the coronavirus been a success or failure - 38% success, 51% failure

Should stores require masks - 84% yes, 16% no

To me his siding with the “Liberate!” protesters has been one of the craziest events of his Presidency - it not only makes the spread of the virus more likely, it is also deeply unpopular.   The number of people in this hard core Liberate camp could be as low as 15% of the public, and is certainly no higher than 30%. What exactly are you doing Mr. President? 

He’s losing the election.  His ridiculous response to COVID has crashed the economy, let the virus run wild, and left us without a serious strategy to defeat the virus, and is deeply unpopular.  A second wave may hit us this fall, just as people go to vote.  From where Trump sits now, things are not looking so good.  Hence “Obamagate” and new Biden slanders.  We all deserve better, much much better. 

Best,

Simon, Chris, and the rest of the NDN team

800 Maine Avenue SW, Suite 200

Washington, DC 20024

www.ndn.org    @NDN_NPI

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