If Trump is to be a "sure" loser, we need a "sure" winner on the Democratic side, and that is a question mark

One may recall how much of the mainstream media—particularly CNN, which was regarded derisively by some as being the “Clinton News Network”—tried to force-feed an unpopular and untrusted Hillary Clinton down voters’ throats in 2016 when there was a viable alternative to her. The media didn’t remind black voters in southern state primaries about how the first Clinton administration’s crime and social welfare bills adversely effected them, nor how CNN in particular did its level best to derail Obama’s candidacy in 2008 by running 24/7 for weeks with the Rev. Wright “controversy,” or how the media ignored Clinton’s race-baiting to white voters in Pennsylvania, or her bizarre referencing of the RFK assassination (suggesting what—that Obama might be “assassinated”?). One desperate diehard, Harriet Christian, crashed a Democratic meeting concerning parsing out delegates in states that broke party primary rules, calling Obama an “inadequate black male,” while feminist commentator Bonnie Erbe had the audacity to write an op-ed in which she called on Obama to “drop out” after he won enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, claiming that white people “will not vote for you”—apparently people like her. 

Of course, the same “unelectability” claim was made concerning Bernie Sanders in 2016, whose insurgent campaign gained such surprising strength that those in the media who felt Hillary Clinton was “entitled” to the nomination worked overtime to ignore or derail his candidacy. What the media failed to recognize was that unlike the 2008 and 2012 elections, it was Obama who offered the electorate something “different” than the status quo, and in 2016 that person would end up being just Donald Trump. Sanders and Trump represented different sides of the same coin, and those who claimed that Sanders was less electable than Trump were fools. It is almost certain that many “swing” voters who disliked Clinton more than they disliked Trump would have preferred to have voted for Sanders than for Trump in the general election. Sanders surprisingly strong showing in the primaries in spite of media opposition—especially among white working class voters—was a lesson that Clinton failed to learn; more than any other reason, her abject failure to court those voters by picking a progressive running mate doomed her in “rustbelt” states. Instead, she picked a Southerner whose principle attribute was that his personality was too “vanilla” to be a personal threat to her.

Now, I know that there is the “anyone but Trump” sloganeering going on, and people seem confident that Trump will get beat in 2020, as he deserves to be by any logical or moral metric. Many have pointed to Trump’s increasingly slurred speech, his difficulty in grasping or accepting factual information, his simple-minded view of how the world functions and interacts, and his juvenile resort to name-calling instead of reasoned  discourse, as evidence of a man losing his grip on reality. The latest “resignation/firing”—that of national security advisor John Bolton—only underlines the fact that the continued personnel chaos in his administration indicates that Trump himself has no coherent ideology driving policy decisions, outside a monomaniacal focus on immigration. We are now learning that some state Republican leaders are moving to stop primaries and caucuses because they are fearful that the latest crop of Republican primary challengers to Trump—fat chance that they have of unseating him as may be—will further expose this patently unfit man to “traditional” conservatives who feel little but contempt for a man who has no real ideology outside of populist bigotry.

But some of us who were around in 1984 remember that questions about Ronald Reagan’s mental state concerned many voters—so much so that his first debate with Walter Mondale was seen as a litmus test for his re-electability, particularly in light of a presidency marred by the mass firing of air traffic controllers and the criminality of a Loony Toons-like Department of the Interior (Iran-Contra was still just around the corner). When Reagan managed to put together coherent sentences during that first debate, his re-election was all but assured. Of course, it is different matter altogether about Trump’s “re-electability”; to logical, reasonable people he just seems to be getting worse by the minute, just throwing mud pies of ideas against a wall to see what “sticks.”  So far the only thing that “sticks” is white racial animus, whether aimed at political enemies or migrants; on virtually every other “issue” of “importance” to his until-death-do-us-part supporters, either they don’t “matter” or thinking upon them can be put off “indefinitely”—assuming, of course, that they are capable of rational thought. But to most thinking people—and we should hope that this is the majority of people in this country—there is simply nothing Trump can do or say now that will make any difference, since every time he opens his mouth, nothing sensible can be expected.

However, I look at the current crop of Democratic contenders and I am just not so certain that there is a “sure” winner among them. Current polling shows Joe Biden with a double-digit lead nationally—likely due to a wide lead among largely black Democratic voters in unwinnable Southern states, which only helped Clinton in 2016 in the primaries—but sweating it out in Iowa and New Hampshire against either Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. I would have bet on Biden in 2016 if he had decided to run then—he seemed more “real” than Clinton—but today he often seems to lose his train of thought and occasionally mislays facts in his memory, which may not be surprising for someone his age, but it doesn’t seem to hinder Sanders. One would have thought that Sanders as a “known” quantity would be doing better, but it seems that many voters are falling back on the idea of the “sure thing” with Biden. On the other hand, Warren just seems like a too easy target for Trump; how will she respond to his assaults on her “socialist” policy ideas? If she wilts into defensive incoherence or engages him on his own juvenile terms, she will be a “sure” loser. 

Out of the top three contenders I am leaning toward Sanders as I did in 2016, although if I could see Beto O’Rourke having a legitimate shot I would certainly give him more than a second look, since he best embodies the inevitable change of direction by a new generation—and this country sorely needs a president who has a clue about where this country is headed.