With the coronavirus, government lockdowns, and crazy actions from the federal government and the Fed, there has been much to talk about.  I haven’t written a lot about electoral politics lately.

I recently wrote a piece critical of Justin Amash, and he has since said that he will not be seeking the Libertarian Party presidential nomination this year.  I don’t think it was because of me and other hardcore libertarians criticizing him.  He may just see the writing on the wall.  It is possible that he received orders from the establishment because they fear he will take more votes from the Democrats than from Trump.  The establishment got Buttigieg and Klobuchar to withdraw right before Super Tuesday, so it is not beyond the realm of possibility that there was pressure put on Amash.

This opens the door for Jacob Hornberger to be the LP nominee.  He would be a much better salesman for liberty than Amash.  I have no grand hopes for a Hornberger run in the general election except that he can convert some more people towards liberty.  It is doubtful he will impact the actual race between Trump and the Democratic nominee.

Trumped

Trump has been beaten down.  The coronavirus and the push by the media finally did to Trump what Russiagate and Ukrainegate could not.  The impeachment of Trump was mostly meaningless.  It was seen as partisan.  It did not badly damage Trump.

What damaged Trump was him playing down the virus in February and then having it hyped up as much as possible by his enemies.  Trump was pushed into relenting and joining the chorus of the government having to take drastic measures to “flatten the curve”.  More accurately, I should say governments, as state and local governments have been as bad or worse as Washington DC.

With regard to lockdowns, Trump has actually been a federalist on this issue.  He has respected “states’ rights” to a large degree.  The left, for three years, warned us that Trump wanted to be a dictator.  When he refused to shut down the whole country, the left complained about him not being dictatorial enough.

Trump’s big issue was the economy.  That is now wrecked. I don’t think the economy was in good shape before March.  In that respect Trump is better off with a horrible economy due to coronavirus reactions than a horrible economy without the coronavirus.  He can use the coronavirus as his excuse. But let’s face it; his number one issue has been taken away from him.

Trump looks defeated. He will still send out messages on Twitter criticizing people and media organizations.  But his overall demeanor has changed.  Listening to him at a press conference about the coronavirus is not the same thing as listening to him speak at a rally in front of 30,000 people.

I think Trump’s reelection chances have diminished significantly over the last 3 months. Maybe he will get back some of his spunk and find new life.  He should fire Dr. Fauci, but I don’t think that will happen.  For some reason, Trump is afraid of the media criticism that would come from that.

Trump should be out there speaking the truth.  He can take the virus seriously and be compassionate, but he can also explain the statistics.  He can point out that the deaths being attributed to the virus are likely way overstated and that many of these people would not have lived much longer had they not had the coronavirus.  He can point out the severe damage being done by shutting down the economy.

I know Trump would take a beating for continually saying these things, but he’s taking a beating anyway.  He might as well go down swinging.

If Trump doesn’t change his whole demeanor quickly, then I don’t think he has much hope of being reelected.  His only hope is that Biden is so incredibly incompetent that Trump wins by default, and barely so.  But, he shouldn’t put his hopes behind Biden and all of his gaffes.

Biden Served His Purpose

I am making a bold prediction here.  I don’t think Biden will be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2020.

I cannot be certain of this, but I think there is a better chance that Biden won’t be the nominee.

Biden had one purpose for the Democratic establishment and the establishment in general. Biden was the tool they used to defeat Bernie Sanders.

If you go back a few months ago, the number one goal of the establishment at that time was to get rid of Bernie.  I think they might have even preferred Trump over Bernie.  While I think the establishment could have largely controlled Bernie, they didn’t want to take that chance.  It wasn’t because of his economics.  We have mostly gotten Bernie economics since March. They feared that he might actually follow through with parts of his foreign policy.  They didn’t want to take that chance.

Now that Bernie is gone, Biden is expendable.  The top goal now is to defeat Trump.  If some other candidate has a better chance at defeating Trump, they will get rid of Biden.

Biden is a train wreck for the Democrats and all of the establishment anti Trumpers.  Biden can’t make a video message from his home without fumbling his words.

I have noticed that the establishment media has not been quite as kind to Biden lately.  The allegations of sexual assault actually did get a little bit of coverage with everything else going on.  They haven’t gone so far as to point out Biden’s seeming senility, and I don’t expect them to, with the exception of Fox News.  But Biden is easily expendable at this point, and he has no choice in the matter.

If Biden is given orders to step down, he probably isn’t going to fight it.  If the media turns heavily on him, it would destroy him.  He doesn’t look good with the media’s protection.  You can just imagine if the media tries to destroy him.

Don’t be surprised if Biden just suddenly steps down one day.  I think it would probably happen before the convention.  It would happen before he officially becomes the nominee.

I have little idea of who would replace him.  It could be Michelle Obama, or Hillary Clinton, or Andrew Cuomo.  I am certain it won’t be Bernie Sanders. It probably won’t be anyone who was running in the 2019/ 2020 race.

Biden will step aside for the good of the party, or at least that is what he will be told to say. Maybe he will say he has some health issues.  It would probably be true.  It wouldn’t be unbelievable at his age.

The Democratic National Committee will make it clear that, although Biden won’t be the nominee, the people made it clear that Bernie should not be the nominee.  There was an obvious preference for someone more mainstream.

This will all have a major impact on the 2020 election.  This is my prediction.  I could be wrong, in which case Trump still has a decent shot at reelection. I think Trump would prefer to go against Biden than almost anyone else.