The Iowa Democratic caucuses will be held on February 3, 2020.  This will likely be my last major political analysis before then.  I will reassess the situation after Iowa, and maybe after the New Hampshire primary on February 11, 2020.

It is a fascinating situation to me because we could potentially have two somewhat anti-establishment candidates going head to head.  Maybe the term “anti-establishment” is not quite correct, but they are not establishment approved.

I am referring to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.  Trump is hated by the establishment and its media.  That is obvious.  Bernie is also hated, but they are a little more careful to not be so blatant about it.

The problem the establishment elites have with these two individuals isn’t that they will necessarily drain the swamp or reduce the size of government.  The problem is that they occasionally tell the truth. This is especially true with respect to foreign policy.

Trump has shown that he can be really bad on foreign policy.  He surrounds himself with war hawks and gets persuaded into these foreign interventions.  He is a coward in many respects.

Bernie may not be much better, but there is hope.  Most of what he says regarding foreign policy is pretty good from a libertarian aspect.  He is certainly good as compared to all of the other Democratic candidates, with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard.

The problem with Bernie (from my perspective) is that he would also likely be a coward. This is the man that campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016.  She is one of the biggest bloodthirsty war hawks of all time.  She also worked with the Democratic Party establishment to snatch the nomination from Bernie.  If there was any major election interference in 2016, it was here.

I also point out that Bernie puts little emphasis on foreign policy.  He is more concerned with attacking the top 1% than he is with stopping the bombing and starvation of little children in foreign countries.

Still, even though Bernie is a massive interventionist domestically, he does appear to favor non-intervention with foreign countries, or at least that is what his rhetoric indicates.  The establishment doesn’t like him because they fear that he might actually follow through with some of what he says.  This would hurt the U.S. empire and the military-industrial complex.  This is why they oppose Bernie.  They aren’t scared about him enacting higher taxes on the rich.

Bernie’s Loyal Followers

It seems strange that the two current frontrunners for the Democratic nomination are old white men. Sanders is 78.  Biden is 77.  They would both turn 80 in their first term in the White House.

There is a big difference between the two, even aside from their politics.  Biden is stumbling.  He can barely put two good sentences together.  He is boring and safe, at best.  But I can’t even say that he is boring. He is actually funny.  The problem is that people who are laughing are laughing at him and not with him.

Bernie, on the other hand, acts younger.  He has energy and passion.  This has earned him a loyal following.  The people who favor Joe Biden in polls are doing so mostly because of name recognition and that they think he can best beat Trump. If they start paying attention, they will realize that he may be the worst person to put up against Trump. If Biden can barely act coherent when speaking for 15 minutes in a 2-hour debate, how will he do when he is speaking half the time in a 2-hour debate?

I think more Democratic voters are going to realize in the coming months that Joe Biden would be a complete disaster.  It would be entertainment for those who don’t like him.  It would be like a bad movie where the audience cringes at one of the characters who keeps embarrassing himself.

This is why Pete Buttigieg should stay in the race.  The establishment may turn to him when they realize just what a disaster Biden is.

It’s interesting that the narrative is that Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are fighting for the hard left voters.  I don’t think there is as much truth to this as there once was.  The really hardcore left doesn’t like Warren. They see her as a phony, which they should.  They only trust Bernie.

Meanwhile, I think the establishment would be more than happy with Elizabeth Warren as president. They could completely control her. She would mostly give them what they want.  And she wouldn’t be enacting a wealth tax.

So if Biden implodes, they may just turn to Warren.  Actually, I think Biden has already imploded.  I am just waiting for others to recognize this fact.

I know there are still several other candidates, but I don’t see a path to victory for any of them. Michael Bloomberg may have an outside chance, even though he is not all that likeable.  It is interesting that there are two billionaires (Bloomberg and Steyer) who are running for the Democratic nomination.  The Democrats supposedly want more equality and they also want to keep money out of politics.  I’m not sure how those views can be squared with billionaire candidates.  But the fact that Bloomberg is gaining a little support just shows that some people are easily enough brainwashed with a few simple commercials.

If several people stay in the race, then I think Bernie has a good chance because of his loyal following that nobody else has.  The establishment does not want him.  This showed during the last debate when he was asked about telling Warren that a woman couldn’t be president.  He vehemently denied he said it.  Immediately after that, one of the debate moderators asked Warren a question based on the premise that Bernie had made that comment.

If Bernie can somehow get by the establishment this time, I actually think he has a decent chance against Trump.  If I were Trump, he is the person I would fear the most.

The bad thing is that it will become something of a referendum of capitalism vs. socialism. Unfortunately, Trump will be representing the capitalism side.  This is a guy who likes tariffs and is helping to run an annual budget deficit of $1 trillion.  And let’s not forget his continued promotion of lower interest rates by the Fed.

2020 will be an interesting year.  I still think the economy is one of the biggest factors.  I don’t know if the stock market can hold up for another 10 months. If it goes down 5 or 10 percent from here, it’s not a big deal.  But if there is a major crash and an obvious onset of a recession before November, then Trump will be in big trouble.  That is, unless the Democratic voters are foolish enough to hand him the gift of Joe Biden.