It's December, that time of year where we look back on the past and think about the future. I'll think of some "best of" lists later, but right now I want to cut straight to the predictions.
I still remember the January morning in 2016 when I woke up to the news that David Bowie was dead. Few other musical artists ever meant as much to me, and his death coincided exactly with the moment where it looked like Trump could be president. Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars starts with "Five Years," a song about what happens when people on earth find out that's all the time they have left. I am beginning to see an eerie coincidence here, since January 2021, five years after Bowie's death, will also see Donald Trump's inauguration.
I now have little doubt that he will be reelected. I can now confidently predict that he will lose the popular vote again, but will also win the electoral vote again. His opposition is still fractured and the Republican Party has maintained its iron discipline. I don't really see many people changing their votes from last time. The election meddling last time will look like child's play compared to what we will see next year. We know voting machines are insecure and a few votes here and there can be easily fudged in a close election in a swing state. Many of those states have Republican leaders who are purging the voter rolls, eliminating polling places (leading to long lines), and putting voter ID laws in place. These measures have already been used effectively. Just look at what happened to Stacey Abrams in Georgia.
When it comes to the primaries, Democrats are in a no-win situation. They cannot nominate a moderate like Biden promising the status quo ante, since that lost them the last election. The economy is growing, which totally undercuts any appeal the turn back the clock message might have. On the other hand, social democrats like Warren and Sanders might have the populist appeal of promising a better life, but that has some pitfalls, especially against Trump. White Americans have never been willing to share with people of color, and policies like Medicare for All demand that. Once Trump tells white people that "your hard-earned dollars will be taken from you and given to THOSE PEOPLE" a lot of "socially liberal but fiscally conservative" dipshits will gravitate away from the Democratic candidate. If a Bloomberg-like moderate runs as a third party candidate then it will truly be curtains. The same goes if a moderate gets the nomination and someone like Tulsi Gabbard runs third party. Again, it won't be enough to give Trump a majority of the popular vote, but he doesn't need that to win anyway.
So this is a roundabout way of saying I don't really care all that much who gets the Democratic nomination. Whoever gets it will win a majority of the popular vote and lose the electoral vote. If I have to make a prediction I think it will be Biden because the Dems typically fall back on "electability" to give an uninspiring candidate the nomination. (Look at 2000, 2004, 2016, etc.)
In terms of electoral politics I want to put my energy into state, local, and Congressional races. The country is going up in flames, but federalism at least makes it so we can try to make our own little corners of the country more humane. Winning Congress keeps conservatives from being able to pass their extreme legislation. It's especially important to win the Senate in order to stop the wholesale bombardment of the federal bench by unqualified ideologues. But like the electoral college, the map doesn't favor it.
Our system of government was designed to thwart the majority will, we can't be all that surprised when it does exactly that. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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