thebigp

We have seen enough of the Biden-Trump race so far to predict what lies ahead over the next seven months of the campaign. Currently, the polls are about dead even. Trump, however, for now enjoys small leads in the majority of the fickle swing/purple states that will likely decide the e******n. So here is what we should expect:
trump likewise has both assets and liabilities. His vulnerabilities are mirror images of Biden’s advantages: he lacks incumbency and the powers that come with it; he does not have an army of officials on his side; and he will have a financial disadvantage.
We have no idea how many gag orders remain. How many late-summer days will Trump spend stuck in court? How many hundreds of millions of his dollars will be expropriated by out-of-control anti-Trump left-wing judges? Can Trump—or any candidate—successfully run with a $1 billion overhead in legal fees and fines and with critical days on the campaign trail diverted to left-wing, media-frenzied, blue-city courtrooms?
In addition, Trump is sometimes his own worst enemy. Trump, one could say, is running mostly against Trump. He knows that if he sticks solely to the agenda, contrasting Biden’s failures with his own past stellar record and future contract with America, he can win. He realizes that he must take the high road and talk idealistically rather than going low and getting angry.
But who could be expected to do so after being the victim of two unfair impeachments, left-wing lies like Russian collusion and disinformation, efforts to railroad him into prison with outrageously politicized legal vendettas, and attempts to remove his name from the b****t?
Trump’s advantages are clear. First, his record: on foreign policy, inflation, and the economy. But most important for the e******n is his ability to connect with people. So far, the split-screen differences between candidate Trump and President Biden have proved overwhelmingly to Trump’s advantage: Biden in New York schmoozing at a black-tie night with celebrities and ex-presidents to haul in $26 million in campaign cash from the hyper-rich, while Trump is with middle-class NYPD rank-and-file at a rainy wake for a murdered cop—k**led by a repeat felon released without bail.
Or Trump buying fast food and milkshakes amid a mostly black Atlanta Chick-fil-A crowd, while Biden dines with the venomous Robert De Niro and the zillionaire Jeff Bezos at a White House dinner, with the celebrities’ trophy girls vying to get the most stares at their multi-thousand-dollar designer clothes—as if they were on the red carpet at the Oscars rather than in the people’s house.
What can Trump do to make the best use of all this? He must magnanimously reach out to former rivals such as Haley, even as she continues to demonize him, and to DeSantis as well. He must unite the House Republicans to keep their razor-thin majority at all costs. He must campaign nonstop among poor w****s, b****s, and Latinos, appealing to shared class concerns rather than the racial obsessions and psychodramas of the bicoastal elite.
He should skip the ad hominem invective, forget the past rivalries with his primary opponents, and assume a corrupt media does not deserve a minute of his time. If he does this, he can win.
But if he climbs down into the mud with his l*****t opponents, trades insults, wrestles with his opponents, and obsesses about f**e news and the crooked media, he will likely lose.
Aside from Trump’s temperament, we must always remember that the answers to two other fundamental questions will determine the outcome of the e******n:
Can the Republicans monitor the b****ting and return it to the environment of 2016 rather than 2020? Can Trump convince millions of minorities, independents, and former Biden v**ers that there are plenty of reasons to v**e for someone they may not like—including the very future of the United States as a free republic as envisioned by the Founders, rather than an increasingly weak, anemic, cranky socialist has-been?
Finally, we must also remember that, ultimately, the outcome of the e******n could be determined by unpredictable events. What happens if the Gaza War expands to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, as Israel is attacked from all directions? Or the military of the United States is attacked in the Middle East, as in the past?
What will be the status of Ukraine by November—static, safer, or absorbed by Russia—and who will be praised or blamed for what ensues?
Will China risk attacking or blockading Taiwan on the theory that it will never be gifted a more ossified president than Biden?
Will the left unleash another late-season October surprise like the 2016 Access Hollywood tape or the 2020 “Russian disinformation” laptop farce? And will these desperate gambits resonate or boomerang?
And, lastly, will the candidates in October and November resemble the candidates of today? These are the two oldest candidates ever to run for president. Will Trump still be vibrant at 78? Will Biden still be upright at 81?
Will Biden’s feebleness still earn him sympathy, or at least respectful silence? Or will it devolve to the point that the public, worn out by his lapses, concludes that Joe Biden would not be able to keep any job in America—except the Presidency of the United States?