I’m
glad I’m not a betting man; I would have lost my shirt several times over if I
had been betting on the current presidential race. I was sure Donald Trump
would be a one-week wonder. I was sure an extremist like Ted Cruz, despised by
almost everyone in the Washington establishment, would be out of the race by
now. I wouldn’t have thought socialist independent Bernie Sanders had a chance
of a snowball in hell in making a mark in the Democratic field. I was wrong on all counts, but undaunted I
will make a few more predictions:
Donald
Trump is almost certainly the GOP nominee, considering that he won in almost
every category in the Nevada caucus. Mitt Romney thinks when Trump finally
releases his tax returns there will be a bombshell in them. I will bet that nothing in those tax returns
will hurt him. If he paid almost no taxes on his immense wealth his supporters
will think “great, this guy knows how to do what I wish I could do”.
Hillary
Clinton will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee, unless she is indicted
before the convention. She should have
been indicted by now – any ordinary person would have been. But this is a
Clinton, and in Washington with a Democratic administration in power in the
Justice Department, so they will no doubt find ways to protect her, however
damming the evidence is.
And
I predict that Donald Trump will beat her in the general election, though it
will probably be a close election. I think Donald Trump would eat her alive in
a debate. It wouldn’t be pretty; it wouldn’t be polite; it would likely be
fairly crude; but I expect he would be pretty effective. She has a lot of
baggage, and he isn’t afraid to bring it up.
She will trot out all her well-worn speech lines which we have all heard
for years – he will be completely unpredictable, probably outrageous, and
therefore seem far more authentic.
In
the end, I think Trump’s appeal is that he just tells it like he sees it,
whether we like it or not. We as a nation are so tired of politicians mouthing politically-correct,
focus-group vetted sound bites, and assuring us that they are “serving the American
people” when we all know perfectly well they are just helping themselves by
serving the interests of the corporations, unions and special interest groups
that fund them. The nation is in a rebellious mood right now, fed by the
economic stagnation and the continuing uncertainty and challenges around the
world, especially from Russia and China.
Trump’s message feeds on that.
This
is not a state of affairs I am happy about. I think either Donald Trump or
Hillary Clinton as president will likely be a disaster, though for different
reasons. I can’t decide whether to just vote for the lesser of two evils (if I
can figure out which is the lesser of the evils) and then throw up, or to not
vote for president at all, or to move to Canada (well, perhaps not that).
But
we have a long way to go yet before the fat lady sings, so there will no doubt
be more startling reversals and shifts.
Let’s see if my new predictions are as far off the mark as my old ones.
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