President Trump launched his reelection campaign last night. It’s obviously anyone’s guess whether he can win. But if you’re getting your news from CNN, MSNBC, or the New York Times, you’re probably convinced at this point that he’s about to be impeached.
Assuming you see through such laughable disinformation, you’re probably aware that for all his sins, Trump has a pretty clear path to reelection.
First, he needs to take credit for the economy, and also avoid messing it up. Unemployment is at a historic low point, wages are up for lower-income workers, and the situation is especially good for black and Hispanic Americans. Trump, who as a reality star was popular outside the traditional conservative crowd, needs to continue making the most of this.
Yes, it’s always doubtful when presidents try to take credit for the economy. After all, economies rise and fall with business cycles and based on millions of individual choices. Former President Barack Obama was notorious for acting as if he had put the oil and gas in the ground that made the fracking revolution possible. But Trump can at least credibly make the case that, after years of relative stagnation under Obama, his deregulatory actions and tax cuts have allowed businesses to thrive.
Second, Trump needs to take credit for his accomplishments in foreign policy. Because as much as people complain about Trump’s brusque style in dealing with other nations, it has gotten good results in a number of important areas. Sometimes you just need a bull inside the china shop before you can get results.
For example, Trump may not be the most popular U.S. president in Europe, but he has successfully bludgeoned free-riding NATO countries into increasing their non-personnel defense spending. Although many allied nations are still falling short of their obligations, they had increased spending from 2016 to the beginning of this year by 4% overall in real terms, or more than $40 billion.
Trump has also successfully persuaded Mexico to stem the unmanageable tide of Central American migrants seeking to game the asylum system at the southern border. Although Trump’s threat of tariffs against Mexico drew a negative reaction from American businesses and from us, Mexico was persuaded and is now helping.
The jury is still out on Trump’s ambitious diplomatic outreach to North Korea and his brinkmanship with tariffs against China. But North Korea is at least not engaging in nearly as many threatening weapons tests, and Trump seems on pace to force China into making a fair deal.
The challenge for Trump over the next year is to continue restraining and constricting Iran’s terrorist regime without forcing a direct military confrontation. After all, Trump promised to keep his nation out of war, and a key part of his appeal involves keeping that promise.
Trump’s third card is the easiest one to play, and one he enjoys playing. He just needs to point out that the Democrats have lost their minds on his watch. They have chosen a moment of unprecedented peace and prosperity to go down the rabbit hole of the much-discredited, often murderous, and always failing ideology of socialism. Where any sensible person would leave well enough alone, they have promised to raise taxes and return to stagnation. They have abandoned the public consensus on abortion, deciding it must be legal up to and beyond the moment of birth, and also funded by the taxpayer. They have embraced anti-scientific gender ideology, and cheer the persecution of Christian bakers.
Even while talking from one side of their mouths about the rights of religious minorities, they wear their anti-religious bigotry on their sleeves, declaring that entire faith communities — faithful Roman Catholics, especially — should be excluded from public life entirely and especially from the U.S. judicial branch.
Trump remains the chaotic figure he always was, and that has always put people off. But he has to convince the public that the nation’s trajectory under his leadership, so long as you ignore the frenzied and often fake day-to-day news coverage, is just fine. To the extent that he can make that case to voters, he will gather support for 2020. And if he gets distracted with other irrelevant messages, he will fail.
