Can we dump Trump?

The Washington Post is managing to tick off the sensibilities of many people who are looking forward to the 2020 election cycle with the goal of dumping that orange-tinted buffoon from the White House.

TRUMP: Is four more years really inevitable?

For the commentary by Hugh Hewitt basically implies that this upcoming presidential election is for Donald Trump to take. The 2020 election isn’t going to be close, is what we’re being told.

DESPITE THE FACT that various polls show the Trump presidency has never been popular amongst the masses, and only survives because of the incredibly outspoken level of support it draws from a minority of our society, many of whom do so because The Donald tends to give his backing to their own prejudices.]

As Hewitt feels, the one thing Trump has going in his favor is the economy. In short, it’s not in a recession or headed in that direction.

“Innovation is accelerating, not declining,” Hewitt wrote. “A recession before Election Day looks less and less likely by the day.”

In short, Trump will not be taken down by the very factor that caused many people to back Bill Clinton over incumbent George Bush (the elder) in the 1992 election cycle.

I’M NOT WILLING to totally dismiss this theory, because I happen to have a cousin who leans Republican and is nominally a Trump backer who defends his ideological choices by saying the state of the economy is really the only issue that matters.

All of Trump’s moments of stupidity and ignorance on so many issues that cause offense to the sensibilities of the majority of us? He argues they just won’t matter, in the end.

Which means that the masses of voters come Nov. 3, 2020 will wind up supporting, either enthusiastically or begrudgingly, the notion of a second term in office for Donald Trump.

BUSH: Trump won't lose due to economy

Something that I’m sure the man’s over-bloated ego will construe as evidence that we really, really love him – and that those of us who don’t want the return of Melania as First Lady can just go and “suck it,” so to speak.

NOW I DON’T doubt that Trump can win re-election, although I think the real factor at work is that many people just won’t be able to reach a consensus on who should be the Democratic challenger against Trump.

I actually think the dozens of candidates thinking they’re the only ones who could possibly run a winning campaign will actually result in enough electoral chaos so that none of them would be capable of getting enough voter support to prevail on Election Day.

Too many people who think that we have to have Bernie Sanders, Or Joe Biden. Or Pete Buttigieg. Or it has to be someone who specifically is NOT a white man. While refusing to consider anybody else. Democrats may not be capable of reaching a consensus candidate to challenge Trump.

Which could result in an election cycle that the masses find contemptible. They hate Trump, but can’t stand whoever it is that winds up getting the political nomination to run against him.

OR, WORSE YET. The confusion level is such that the same Electoral College mess that enabled Trump to win the presidency with 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton could kick in yet again. Right now, I'd have to think the odds are too great that Trump will once again get less than 50 percent of the vote.

BIDEN: Leading Dem, for now

Donald Trump could easily wind up as the two-term president who never took a majority of the vote and also was unable to ever get his popularity rating in polls above the 50 percent mark. In short, the man forced upon our society by an outspoken minority determined to force their ideological leanings upon the masses.

Some might think that a “victory,” of sorts. History would record Trump as a president no one wanted. But in reality, it would record him as a two-time victor – and further reinforce the leanings of the ideologues into thinking they’re the only people who really matter.

Some might want to think that the lack of a recession is a Trump accomplishment. But if anything, the fact that Trump has a snowball’s chance in that place ending in double-hockey sticks of winning re-election really ought to be blamed on the political ineptness of those who want to Dump Donald, but can’t quite figure out how to do so.

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‘Big 10’ turf to be the key to comprehending 2020 prez election

They're the midwestern states that comprise the Big 10. Or maybe you prefer to think of them as the places where the Great Lakes are a daily reality of life.

Will Milwaukee get honors of helping 'dump Trump'

Our region of the nation is going to play a key factor in comprehending just how the will of the nation leans come the 2020 election cycle for president. As to whether we get “four more years” of Donald Trump or someone inclined to keep his perspective alive?

OR WILL WE see a return to sanity and a jerk back to policies less selfish and mean-spirited than the ones we’ve had the past two-plus years? Which if you look at the results of the latest Morning Consult “Tracking Trump” poll is the trend the Great Lakes region is heading toward these days.

A large part of the reason why Trump was able to win the electoral college (and a term as president) despite losing the popular vote by a significant margin is that many of the states of our region flipped over to the GOP column.

With many states having their more rural portions turn out to vote in stronger numbers – thereby enabling them to overcome the urban portions of their states.

Illinois may have significantly went for Hillary Clinton’s presidential dreams, along with Minnesota. But the rest of the region, including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin felt compelled to back Trump.

Who will decide electoral outcome in '20?

ILLINOIS LITERALLY FELT all alone and lonesome in our region that Election Night of 2016. If a Democratic presidential challenger is to have any chance of achieving victory in 2020, we’re going to have to go back to the days when the bulk of the Great Lakes region leans Democrat – with places like Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee turning out and leaving Indiana as the isolated freak of the region.

It is with that in mind that it makes all the sense in the world that the Democratic Party decided to hold their presidential nominating convention next summer in one of the most unglamorous of places – Milwaukee.

Much was made in the news reports of the convention location that this is one of the few times a nominating convention was held in a Midwestern city. Not since 1916 and St. Louis has such an event been held in our region of the nation.

With the exception being Chicago. We had the Democratic convention of 1996, and the historic memories of 1968 still linger in our political mindset. Before that, both major political parties used to enjoy our city.

WHEN RICHARD NIXON was nominated for president in 1960, it was our city that did the honors of hosting the event. Even though most Republican ideologues like to rant and rage that Chicago’s real part of that particular election cycle was providing enough inner-city and cemetery-based voted to ensure that Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy.

Not likely that Republicans would ever consider coming to our city for their political shows. In fact, next year they’ll be doing their honors in Charlotte, N.C. – the city that hosted the Democratic convention of 2008 that resulted in Barack Obama being presented to the nation.

The point being that I’m sure Democratic political operatives intend for a Milwaukee-based event to inspire Democrats of Wisconsin to turn out in force. To make sure that the Badger state’s 10 electoral votes are amongst the ones that wind up in the Democratic presidential challenger’s column.

Which could also inspire Democrats in places like Detroit to make sure that cities such as Grand Rapids, Mich., don’t out-vote them again, or that Ohio’s urban areas around Cleveland and Toledo don’t get drowned out by partisan opposition in Cincinnati.

BECAUSE IT’S VERY clear that if those Great Lakes states swing back over to the Democratic column, we won’t have a “President Trump” or anybody aligned with him any longer. Heck, it’s obvious that if Hillary Clinton hadn’t taken the region for granted in 2016, she would have got the Electoral College majority IN ADDITION to a popular vote win!

Checking out Aaron's one-time home

We would never have had to endure the embarrassment that a Trump presidency would have brought us.

Of course, we’d have had to endure years of partisan nonsense from Republican ideologues determined to show us they could dump on Hillary even worse than they did to Obama or to her husband, Bill.

So next year, when the political attention span of the nation focuses for a week on Milwaukee, keep in mind there’s a reason. Maybe you’ll even find a chance to enjoy a brew – along with being in the city that was home to one of baseball’s all-time greats, Hank Aaron. Or if you're feeling particularly lame, you can skip through the streets singing the "Laverne & Shirley" theme song.

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An ongoing education of the American electorate in ways & means of voting

The 2000 election cycle is the one that taught us about the “hanging chad,” and gave us a crash course in just how subjective the process of counting votes can be, while this is the year we learn of the realities of the Electoral College.
 

BIDEN: Will confirm next month that Trump won

I’m all for anything that gives the public a better comprehension of the processes by which we elect people to public office. Yet it disturbs me that it takes instances of screw-ups for the bulk of us to show any instance in learning the lessons.

I BELIEVE WE’D be better as a society if we put some serious thought into who we choose to hold public office. Yet we don’t. In fact, some of us seriously resent the notion that public office even exists, and that people like me think they ought to be thinking about it.

Seriously, I suspect that most of us remember the term “Electoral College” as something that came up in a high school class taken long ago that they promptly let slip from their memories. I’m sure that upcoming party with a beer keg was more interesting, and the alcoholic consumption probably killed off the brain cells that once contained government details.

So it takes an instance where a presidential candidate takes nearly 2.9 million more votes than her opponent, yet loses under the rules we have in place, to get people to think seriously about the Electoral College – which personally is something I consider to be an obsolete concept.

It was created at a time when the Founding Fathers believed the public (or at least the white, male portion of it) would not know enough to properly pick a president. So they were supposed to pick learned people to represent them, and those people would pick the president.

TRUMP: He and Bush beneficiaries of quirks

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE process has evolved since then into one where the electors are supposed to represent the mood of the people of their state. The electors who gathered in Springfield on Monday were Democratic partisans who made sure Illinois will go into the history books as a sensible place that resisted the rancid rhetoric and twittish Tweets of one Donald J. Trump.

But no one seriously expected any significant numbers of electors to change their stances. I suspect those who were chosen to back Trump’s campaign are taking pride in being able to say they gave us “President Donald J. Trump,” and probably think it was a sense of cosmic justice that their guy “won” despite losing the popular vote!

BUSH: Is he embarrassed by any tie to Trump?

All of this means that come Jan. 6, when Congress holds its joint session to formally affirm the Electoral College count taken Monday, I suspect there will be at least one (probably more) political pundit eager to proclaim the look of depression on Joe Biden’s face (don’t forget, he serves as Senate president) when he has to formally announce that Trump really will be Number 45 in the line of men who served as U.S. president.

Anybody who was paying attention in school would have learned about this lengthy process that leads up to the naming of a new president – although I’m sure there are those for whom this is new.

AND ALSO SOME who are upset that the unofficial vote count from back on Nov. 8 didn’t just make the whole thing official.

CLINTON: How many non-voters overcome Trump?

Just as I’m sure there were people who back in 2000 couldn’t comprehend the need for another vote count to answer questions about the one in Florida that first gave the state’s electors to Al Gore, then to George W. Bush, and left enough questions in the public’s minds that there are people who will forevermore think we don’t know what it was that Florida voters intended to do. Because a ballot's intent isn't always blatantly obvious.

Of course, understanding the process is one thing. Actually getting off one’s duff and casting a ballot is all the more important. Because of the evidence that certain segments of the electorate that might have been disgusted by the concept of “President Trump” were too lazy to bother to vote at all.

As odd as it might sound that Clinton needed more than her 2.86 million lead in votes to actually win this election cycle, that is the reality of our current system. The sooner we all realize that, the better off we will be!

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Are we destined for “President Pence?” Should that scare us more than Trump?

Spending time as I do working as a reporter-type person on the other side of State Line Road, I have found a group of Democrats to whom the concept of the upcoming presidency of Donald J. Trump is not the most terrifying thought.
 

PENCE: From Indiana to U.S.A., could it happen?

For them to really get a jolt of fear down their political spines, it is the thought of “President Michael R. Pence,” their state’s former governor, ascending to the top post of the United States government.

PENCE GAINED HIS national infamy back when Indiana gave us a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that went so far over the top, even the conservative elements that govern the Hoosier State (which is truly a Bizarro-world take on what we have here in Illinois) felt compelled to scale it back.

But it was the measure that would have put the law on the side of those people who wanted to cite their religious beliefs as the reason to discriminate against people who weren’t like themselves.

Particularly when it comes to those who differ based on sexual orientation issues. But it gave Pence a national reputation – one that helped bolster Trump’s chances of getting elected back when the conservative ideologues weren’t sure if they could trust the rich to be president.

Now, Trump is the president-elect, and Pence moves up to the position of being one step down from becoming U.S. president – should something happen that would prevent Trump from being capable of finishing his term.

WHICH IN THIS political environment may well be a real concept – and just because at age 70, Trump is one of the oldest men ever elected president of this country.

There are those who speculate how unlikely it is that Trump will finish out the four years of the term to which he was elected last month and which will begin in January.

Of course, there are different reasons for their speculations.

 

TRUMP: Will he finish what he starts?

Some believe Trump is just too much of a political amateur to realize what he has got himself into, and will either become frustrated or bored when he finally realizes that image of himself as being the guy who bellows “You’re Fired!” at everybody who displeases him just doesn’t work in government.

HE COULD EASILY turn out to be like Sarah Palin – whose government credentials prior to her 2008 vice presidential bid were being governor of Alaska. But she didn’t even finish out that one term – making it only about two years into it before using her newfound VP nominee status to justify moving on to more visible ventures.

Which in her case amount to being a political loudmouth who spews her thoughts to whomever will listen (and usually winds up giving the real majority of us a good laugh).

Would Trump quit when he realizes life in the White House and on Air Force One isn’t garish and gaudy enough to live up to his tastes?

Or there’s the more extreme option – one that says Trump will do something severe enough to warrant his impeachment. I can’t envision what it would be, but anything is possible in this unpredictable political climate.

I COULD ENVISION a scenario in which his alleged Republican allies, some of whom were never thrilled with his presence instead of a more-reliable GOPer, turn on him. Or it could be the ideologues who banded together to give him that likely Electoral College victory next week decide that he’s not keeping his word to impose all those tyrannical measures that Trump talked about during his campaign that THEY TRULY DESIRE!

 

CLINTON: We can only dream of her presidency

Saying he’s not likely to move to prosecute one-time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton like he said he would during the campaign is a serious broken promise – along the lines of “Read my lips, no new taxes” is to more rational people when discussing the legacy of the first President George Bush.

I state it in that sarcastic manner because on a serious level, the only “crime” that Clinton committed was having the unmitigated gall to think she had any right to seek the presidency in the first place.

People who think like that could easily turn on their guy, particularly if they think they have a more stable and reliable conservative voice in place in the form of Pence – of which the thought of him in the Oval Office does give shudders down the back of the progressive majority peeved that the Electoral College didn’t reflect their reality in this particular election cycle.

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Who blew it; bad polls or bad parody?

It has become the trendy thing to do, particularly for whiny backers of president-elect Donald Trump who are determined to believe the whole world is rigged against their inherently superior beings. Lambast the pollsters and political geeks who were convinced that we’d now have President-elect Hillary R. Clinton.
 

CLINTON: Will she take pleasure in historic defeat?

Sure enough, there were plenty of polls prior to Election Day that indicated Clinton likely would come out of the process with a slight lead.

THE POLLSTER BASHING goes around the notion that these ridiculous twits couldn’t see for themselves how popular Trump was amongst the “real” people of the country.

But then I look at the voter tallies, that as of Tuesday were indicating that some 1.7 million more people cast votes for Clinton rather than Trump. Who’s to say how big the gap will get by the time every vote is counted and the final results are certified.

Could it be that the polls “got it right,” but were asking the wrong question – largely because the people weren’t focusing on the correct issue?

The fact is that the polls that were constantly reported on, particularly by broadcast news outlets, were oversimplified nonsense that really didn’t tell us much.

THEY ASKED AN assortment of people from across the country who they favored for president in the upcoming election, then gave us numbers based off that national mix.

Which is phonier; '16 Electoral College results...

If they said that Clinton had a 1- or 2-point lead over Trump, one could argue that Clinton seems to have exceeded that tally slightly.

But the problem is that isn’t how we elect presidents in this country. We don’t have national elections with a vote tally from across the country. We have a series of statewide elections, with the results of each then combined into a process that gives us the Electoral College.

To accurately tell us what we’d need to know, we would have had to poll each and every state individually, then take the results and figure out how that would impact the awarding of delegates from each state.

... or Trump University degree?

RESULTING IN THE Electoral College tally that will be compiled early next month that will make the selection of Donald J. Trump as our nation’s 45^th president official.

Actually, the few times I saw poll results coming from specific states that were figured to be battlegrounds, they indicated potential problems for Hillary. I’d argue that the information was there, if people were willing to take the time to try to read it properly.

Although that becomes the problem – too many people don’t really want to take the time to do anything. Just like the issue of “fake news” reports that seem to be becoming more and more popular.

Largely from people who think they’re getting a laugh out of reading that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump – just like all those National Enquirer reports throughout the years about extra-terrestrial visits to Earth.

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE they see the old photographs of Elvis Presley meeting with Richard Nixon and figure nothing is too weird to believe.

Does this feel like a 'fake news' report?

I know some people try to claim that these humorous efforts are merely satiric in nature – yet satire always has a legitimate point to make in its exaggerations of the truth. Much of these nonsensical items are meant merely to confuse. Although I must confess to finding some amusement in the report from the Onion following the World Series – the report that said generations of now-deceased Cubs fans conducted a drunken riot in Heaven in celebration of their one-time favorite ball club’s victory after all these years.

That report indicated that God banished a few hundred of the most intoxicated revelers from Heaven to Hell as punishment.

A fate I’d like to believe will eventually befall those people who persist in spewing their partisan nonsense out of a desire to confuse, rather than inform.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): The Election Day 2016 hangover?

Andrew Jackson, Samuel Tilden, Grover Cleveland, Al Gore, and now, Hillary Clinton -- those are the five individuals in U.S. history who managed to win the popular vote when they ran for president, yet didn't win their electoral bids.

George W. has something in common with Donald

 
In the cases of Jackson and Cleveland, they both later tried again and won the presidency. While Clinton is likely to wind up in the category of Tilden and Gore – whose political careers ended with their electoral defeats.

I BRING THIS up because it seems that Donald Trump will gain a historic Fdistinction that I’m sure he won’t want to acknowledge – a majority of the people who voted didn’t want him.

He only gets to call himself “president-elect” these days because of the vagaries of the Electoral College process, which allowed him to gain the political support of states with sizable rural areas that could overcome their metro population centers.

In places like New York, California and Illinois (which have the three largest cities in the nation that dominate their state political processes), it was a good day for Clinton. Yet elsewhere, we get to see a national map of red – with blue blotches that clearly show you where all the cities of any size are located.

For the record, as of Wednesday morning there were 59.34 million votes for Clinton, compared to 59.18 million for Trump.

I DO FIND one bit of irony, in that amidst all the political speculation leading up to Election Day there were people who speculated about the concept of the popular vote and the Electoral College producing differing results. Yet all the people who discussed the idea did so on the basis that Trump would be the choice of “the people” and that it would be Clinton who would somehow only gain the presidency through the Electoral College process.

Which was identical to the George W. Bush/Al Gore election cycle of 2000. Gore got the popular vote total (50,999,897 votes), even though many people were willing to presume that it would be Bush (50,456,002 votes) who would be the pick of the masses.

Why are we so eager to believe that “the people” want these political officials willing to pander to the ideologues, who if they had any sense ought not go around ever complaining again about the electoral process being rigged.

So what else are we pondering these days, aside from the fact that suburban Park Ridge native Clinton will not give us a second consecutive president with strong Chicago ties?

THE HOARDS HAVE REALLY OVERRUN THE LAND OF DuPAGE: I realize Illinois has changed – being one of the few places nationally that gave comfort to Democratic Party political interests.

Yet learning that in a GOP-leaning year, Hillary Clinton managed to win DuPage County so solidly is such a shock. She took 53.9 percent of the county’s vote, compared to only 39.8 percent for Trump. In fact, Clinton won all the suburban counties surrounding Cook, including Lake County in Indiana (58.4 percent) even though the Hoosier State was actually first in the nation for Trump – except for up in far northwest McHenry.

Where Trump managed to take a slim 50.7 percent voter majority.

This really became a matter of a rural majority that Trump managed to milk for all it was worth, with many interests that should have backed Hillary falling short of anticipated support.

COME TOGETHER? OR SHUT UP!: Just a thought about the victory speech that Donald Trump made just before 2 a.m. Central Standard Time. It is being spun by some as a sign that Trump wants to work with all and the people who opposed him were being so irrational in their fears.

 

KIRK: Setting a standard for concessions?

When Trump says we need to “Come together as one united people,” my gut reaction is to hear a grouchy grandpa say, “Shut up and do what you’re told.” That sentiment would certainly be consistent with all the trash talk that Trump spewed during the campaign cycle.

Anyway, now we move on, and accept the reality that a Trump administration is likely to give new political life to people like Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich and also enable New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to have a future – none of which would have been possible prior to Tuesday.

And as for the coming together, we’ll see how conciliatory the meeting on Thursday is at the White House between Trump and President Barack Obama. Although I wonder if soon-to-be-former Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., has the right idea – a beer at the Billy Goat with his political conqueror, Tammy Duckworth.

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Enjoy her while she lasts; we won’t see much of Hillary after Wednesday?

Then again, I’m sure there are some people to whom that headline is cause for huzzahs and hurrahs; as in the less we see of that dame, the better off we all are.

 

Could Clinton come to Old Capitol on Wednesday?

The point is that while we are approaching the point in time when the serious campaigning will kick into gear between Hillary Clinton and her likely Republican challenger Donald Trump, the campaign season might as well be over with for us Illinoisans.

THE HOOSIERS WILL probably get more love from the candidates than we will!

It all comes down to the fact that Illinois’ electoral population is pretty well dominated by the Chicago interests organized by the Democratic Party. The other 96 counties of Illinois may well lean Republican, but it won’t be enough to matter.

Illinois’ Electoral College votes will wind up in the Clinton campaign following the Nov. 8 Election Day. And I don’t care how much bluster Trump tosses out about how he’s going to win Illinois.

He’s not. His statements are just evidence that he’s spewing a load of nonsense. Seriously, I’d give Trump a greater chance of winning the Latino vote across the country (a Latino Decisions poll released Monday says Trump only gets 16 percent support from likely Latino voters) than I do in thinking he’ll take any significant support in the Land of Lincoln.

WHO I HONESTLY think if he were alive today would be leading the effort to dump the Republican Party for a new alternative. Seriously, he dumped the Whigs to become a GOPer when he was alive. Lincoln certainly had that fighting spirit in his personality.

So what’s the point of Hillary Clinton coming to Illinois on Wednesday for the first time since our state’s primary elections (which she won, albeit narrowly, over Bernie Sanders) back in March?

She’ll get her state Capitol appearance, quite possibly on the steps of the Old Capitol Building with all its historic Lincoln ties and also to remember the way in which the Barack Obama presidential campaign (which beat up on her back in ’08) managed to use to its success.

 

Has Trump given Ind. a second thought since selling casino?

Based on the Chicago Sun-Times, Clinton may also include an evening appearance that day at a private fundraiser along the North Shore suburbs. Which is where she’ll get what her campaign really wants – more money!

THE MORE CAMPAIGN cash she has on hand, the more she can emphasize the fact that she’s running a structured campaign while Trump is putting together something completely off the seat of his pants that seems to be undermined every time his ego runs amok.

Hillary has the potential to get what she needs from Illinois right now, making it highly unlikely we’ll get to see much more of her. Our political geeks will have to satisfy themselves with the Kirk/Duckworth U.S. Senate seat fight, along with all the people who desperately will smear the reputation of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, in hopes it will somehow benefit their own campaigns’ chances!

We may have to pay attention to our neighbor to the east if we want to see campaign activity, particularly if Gov. Mike Pence does somehow wind up being the one that Trump picks to be his vice presidential running mate.

Because Trump himself has identified Indiana as one of the states that he seriously intends to compete in for the upcoming election cycle. He’s counting on keeping Indiana’s Electoral College votes in his camp. Besides, Trump still remembers the hostile reaction he got the last time he set foot in Chicago! I'm sure he'll have extra security in place for the fundraiser he has planned for Tuesday -- one for which the "Dump Trump" activists already have their pickets planned for outside the Trump Tower along the Chicago River.

The new Chicago "White House?"

IF CLINTON COULD somehow use the northwest portion of the state (the part that is an extension of the Chicago area) to her advantage, it could make the state that bills itself the “Crossroads of America” a part of the Democratic column of presidential electors – just as Obama did back in 2008.

Heck, it could be the Hoosiers who save us all from the fate of a man whose idea of “making America great” is to create a whole batch of people just like himself.

Saving us from having an orange president who looks like he ought to be the chief executive of Oompa-Loompa Land is something that ought to make us all eternally grateful to Indiana residents – at least enough to lay off the Hoosier jokes for a day or so!

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