The 2020 presidential election campaign is still in its formative stages. Democrats still are winnowing down a huge field of contenders/pretenders for their party’s nomination. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is gearing up as the Republicans’ nominee.
OK, so what might we expect to hear from the Trump Team as it seeks to get its man re-elected?
The economy will be front and center of Trump’s theme. Fine. The numbers have been good. Unemployment is low. Job growth has been brisk. However, there are danger signs lurking. Economists suggest a recession might be in the country’s near future.
However, even though he denigrates his immediate predecessor’s record over two terms as president, Trump did inherit an economy that was in far better shape than the one that dropped onto President Barack Obama’s lap in January 2009.
Beyond that, I want to hear from Trump’s allies why this man who has masqueraded as president deserves to be re-elected. I want them to make a positive case for him.
I’ll be clear that there’s nothing they can tell me that will change my mind. In my view, Trump is unfit for office. Name any category you wish — previous experience, business acumen, morality, ideology, presidential behavior — in my view he fails every test you can imagine.
I am willing to listen to those who are willing to make the case.
Who will stand up, grab a microphone and tell us that Donald Trump possesses all the essential qualities we expect in a president. Who will say he is compassionate? Or that he listens to Americans? Or that he studies the issues before acting on them? Or that he grasps the complexities of his office, or the massive federal government?
Trump’s own strategy likely will be steeped in innuendo, just as it was in 2016 when he surprised the political world by defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton. He won’t proclaim his own virtues, other than those he fabricates: his intelligence and his memory.
Trump’s campaign team will have to craft a message that echoes the boss’s own penchant for tearing down the opposition, just as it did when he won the previous presidential election.
Is that enough to send this guy back to the Oval Office for another four years? No. It damn sure isn’t.
However, I am awaiting something that resembles a positive message. To be candid, I likely won’t know how to react if I hear one.
Maybe I will just laugh out loud.