Trending Towards Change
Donald Trump is probably having a better morning today than you think. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that he has been inviting an impeachment inquiry for a long time because it will vindicate him in the Senate and thereby work for his electoral prospects in 2020. You’re thinking that the tactically brilliant Nancy Pelosi has finally been overwhelmed by irrational congressional pressure to punish Trump by sending him through the gauntlet of impeachment with the assurance that the loyalist, partisan Republican-controlled Senate will hold the line against convicting one of their own. You’re thinking Trump is immune to concerns about anything and everything sticking to him as he careens down the road to a second term and veritable invincibility. He has been and remains today a 40% approval president (give or take 2 percentage points in either direction). Nothing seems to change that for better or worse. Why should that comfort him since that seems to be less than what is needed to win an election? He knows better. Between Russian social media interference, the quirks of the electoral college, voter suppression tactics both in-built and actively engaged worked in 2016 and Trump believes they will work again in 2020 to take him over the top. But that isn’t why he is waking up happy today.
You think I’m now going to suggest that Trump is so narcissistic that he is incapable of recognizing his own failings and therefore he inflates his 40% to 90% in his mind, feeling like only the fringe of liberalism, who are haters and losers anyway, are against him. He not only wants everyone to love him, he expects everyone to love him. A man who honestly thinks a lacquered bottle blonde comb-over makes him look young and good (actually, VERY good, according to his self-image) is unable to see the reality of his situation. He cannot fathom his own limitations and shows that daily with his inane and most often erroneous command of facts. His distortions of history alone show his ability to paper over any fact that does not suit his current narrative. Hell, he’s even willing to change those facts in plain sight to fit a new narrative whenever needed. And when he is called out as wrong by an indisputable expert (like the National Weather Service of Birmingham, Alabama on the subject of upcoming weather in Alabama) he is willing and able to move all the forces of the largest government in the world to prove that he knew better than experts and cannot, by definition, be called wrong. But that isn’t why he is waking up happy today either (though I do ponder what his first thought on any given morning might truly be).
Donald Trump is waking up happy due to this morning’s polling news showing that Elizabeth Warren (a.k.a. Pocahontas) is now ahead of Joe Biden in the polls and is now the leading Democratic candidate in the campaign primaries to earn the seat to oppose him in the 2020 election. That is undoubtedly very good news to Trump. He has convinced himself that Biden is his biggest threat in the election. He is an old white male, just like Trump. He stands more for maintaining the status quo than the progressive agendas of the left. He has been in politics for so long that there are countless positions to attack and the label awaits of being a “swamp inhabitant”. He can point to prior disappointments under Democratic policies and tag him for his affiliation with Obama with his base and tag him for his dalliances (of those of his son) with the undecided voters, but he is a nice guy and that’s always hard to fight. Trump is probably chuckling that the cost of going after dirt on Biden in the Ukraine was the prize of impeachment, AND it worked in bringing the shit on Biden’s head to the forefront of voter’s awareness. Now the poll results bear witness that Trump again has wounded an opponent. He probably feels Biden is too weak to get up off the canvas and is now down for the count. Now he can turn his attention to the much easier underbelly of Elizabeth Warren.
As for Elizabeth Warren, she is becoming case-hardened by this campaign trail. She has built momentum against a broad 25-candidate field and despite all her flaws (whatever you think they may be), she has risen to the top of the field. Despite having Bernie Sanders and his loyalists out there on the progressive limb for almost five years, her brand of progressive social democracy has distinguished itself and won over a growing progressive base of the Democratic party. Despite being a blonde cropped-hairdo woman who might get mistaken for Hilary What’s-Her-Name, she has gradually and inexorably garnered a larger share of the democratic electorate. While Elizabeth Warren is a very normal-looking mature woman, who is not hard on the eyes. She is no beauty queen and does not try to impress with either her cosmetology or her attire. She might be called “Plain Jane”, but in a reasonably hip and modern way. She neither tries to look younger than she is, nor does she appear dowdy. She looks very genuine. She is fiery in her rhetoric, but not crazed like Bernie, not witty like Buttigieg, not piercing like Kamala Harris, and not angry-sounding like Cory Booker. She smiles with her fiery rhetoric. She has the look of someone who is confident in her beliefs and has done the in-depth homework to know how to respond to challenges to her policies rather than to deflect them in typically political manner.
Elizabeth Warren is now on top of the polls and she did not jump there suddenly after a debate or due to some great point-scoring maneuver. She got there like E.F. Hutton, she earned it. She has been on a steady roll and has done it with what would be called in football, a solid ground game. She has worked tirelessly to get out across the country and get her substantive polices in front of the electorate. And here’s the surprise, it sells. The same people that wanted what Trump sold in 2016 are probably starting to realize that maybe Elizabeth Warren can deliver what they want in terms of social and economic justice for the broadest part of the population. Therein lies her strength.
Why is Donald Trump happy this morning? First, he knows what to call her already…she is Pocahontas. Secondly, he knows what to label her…Socialist. What he doesn’t yet recognize is that she and that may be what the American electorate really want. Stay happy Donald. The congress can’t touch you. Biden is being carried out of the ring and now there is only a socialist female to defeat. You will get elected in 2020 and start working on a constitutional change to allow you to be names President-for-life. Stay happy.