Last night Trump gave a major speech announcing his 2024 run. I am more convinced than ever he will win. At one point his speech was viewed by over 100,000 people concurrently across multiple YouTube channels. Biden cannot pull those kind of numbers. All Trump has to do to win is blame his opponent for high inflation. This is the exact playbook Reagan used against Carter.
Will the FBI make a move against Trump? I don’t think anything will happen, but it would seem almost too easy to find some bullshit excuse to indict him between now and the election. But the risk of doing that is it could boost turnout for DeSantis, the presumptive nominee should Trump be unable to run. It would also be too obvious. An effective conspiracy cannot draw attention to itself. Such a high profile arrest at such an opportune time would blow the cover of any pretense of fairness, and lower public trust even more so.
The left and the right are guilty of overestimating the power of their respective ideological opponents. The left hates Elon Musk but were powerless or indifferent at stopping him from buying Twitter. None of the billionaire, left-wing elite put a counteroffer to stop Elon from prevailing in buying one of the biggest social media companies in the world when they had ample opportunity to. It’s been over 6 months and Trump has still not been arrested as a consequence of possibly withholding classified documents, as I (so far) correctly predicted. Based on my knowledge of how federal investigations work, the events that transpired during the Mar A Lago raid did not lead me to believe that Trump was in serious trouble. Although, of course, I could still be wrong.
Same for the popularity of Dave Chappelle and Rogan…the left is unable to anything about them. They could not get Spotify to drop Rogan, nor can they find anyone as popular as him as a left-wing counterbalance. Left-wing culture, such as TV and Hollywood, is stale and derivative, such as endless superhero reboots and SNL, which after 45 years still hobbles on, occasionally making its existence known when one of its otherwise unfunny skits or monologues goes viral. All the left can do is pander to low-turnout groups, not shape the zeitgeist in the way that the right has with Trump, Rogan, and Musk.
Regarding the economy, in his speech Trump blamed Biden for high inflation, but there isn’t much difference between the two in terms of economic policy. The fraud-laden PPP program, under the CARES act, was signed by Trump. Biden and Trump supported massive Covid stimulus, and in late 2020 Trump threatened to not sign a second stimulus bill unless Congress increased the stimulus checks to $2,000 per person, which would have been even more inflationary had he gotten his way (instead of the $1,400 negotiated by Biden).
Biden nominated Chairman Powell, who was originally in 2017 appointed by Trump. Had Trump won he would have likely pressured Powell to keep rates low even as inflation was rising in early 2021. There is nothing to suggest that there would be less inflation under Trump given that likely he would have continued the same loose fiscal polices as Biden, and tax cuts are generally considered inflationary, too. As president, Trump’s main focus was growing the economy and making the stock market go up, not worrying about inflation. Why would that suddenly change in early 2021 because of inflation concerns.
Somewhere in his speech Trump called for unity. The division is going to get worse than imagined. For years I have discounted the possibly of civil unrest, but today’s climate is the most divided I have seen it. I don’t think it will lead to violence or anything like that, but it’s not even 2024 yet and yet things seem so intense. And I’m thinking, ‘we’ have to get through the next two years together without things completely apart. And then the next 4 years after that, and that, …ad infinitum…how is that going to work. 2016 was bad enough, then was 2020. Each wave–Jan 6th, GameStop, Covid, Roe v. Wade, Ukraine, Elon Musk and Twitter, etc. is higher than the one the preceded it.
I think though it’s likely that had Trump won in 2020 that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine, which contributed to high oil prices. Same for 2014, under Obama, when Putin attempted to annex parts of Ukraine. Trump, despite being portrayed by his critics as unhinged or impulsive, as president made the world safer by conveying strength, which Biden is lacking.