Despite an onslaught of the great and the good telling us for a couple of years now that Donald Trump would not win the Republican nomination – these attempts becoming ever less connected to reality as time went by – it is now plain that he has won it. He will be the Republican nominee. The stream of establishment Republicans recently trying to sell us the snake oil that Nikki Haley had a hope in hell of winning was just laughable. New Hampshire, the second primary state after Iowa, has a primary in which independents can vote in the Republican race. If she can’t win there she can’t win any state in the U.S. And her own state of South Carolina, which comes third, has seen both its U.S. Senators endorse Trump. The current Governor of South Carolina has too. It’s plain for all to see. Nikki Haley is toast. (Side prediction: Haley is so out of sync with the Republican base on immigration, the border, transgender issues, foreign wars and more that I don’t believe Trump will pick her as his VP choice.)
Of course the establishment class has thrown everything it can at Trump, not excluding the kitchen sink. Indictments, lawfare, a risibly one-sided legacy media that even opted not to broadcast Trump’s acceptance speech after he won in Iowa. And this is not new. Remember back to the first Trump impeachment? It was over a phone call he made (leaked by a bureaucrat who would never have leaked against a Democrat President) to the Ukraine President about Hunter Biden. Turns out everything Trump asked about was true. The impeachment was part and parcel of the Russia collusion hoax and all the other efforts made by Democrats and the managerial class to undermine his Presidency. Heck, maybe worst of all was the four-dozen odd senior intelligence officers who, seemingly at the request of the Biden campaign, wrote the open letter just before the 2020 election stating that the Hunter Biden laptop had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. It was in fact Hunter’s laptop with all its incriminating material (as even the NY Times now concedes, over three years later). Polls afterwards indicated that had the laptop been publicised as probably real Trump would have won. And let’s be honest. These top intelligence people knew it was real when they wrote their letter giving cover to Team Biden. They surely knew as much as Miranda Devine and the NY Post. And she knew it was real and that it showed real corruption in the Biden family.
Now for many establishment conservatives and former conservative politicians in Australia, Canada, Britain and without doubt in the U.S., none of this matters. They simply dislike Trump too much – his boorishness, bluntness, scorn for the elites, plebeian eating tastes. They just don’t think he’s suited to be President. Of course, if you point to his actual record from 2016 to 2020 it is basically impossible for any remotely Right-of-centre (and indeed any independent) voter to deny that it’s the best record of this century. On the economy. On tax cuts. Appointing judges. He did more to secure the border than any Republican President (including Reagan). And to the extent he was undermined it was Republicans like John McCain casting the deciding vote to keep Obamacare and Paul Ryan as House Speaker not really funding the wall. (It’s a bit like looking at 13 years of British Tory rule and noticing that they have not delivered on any of the promises they’ve made to their core voters in all that time – for instance, they could stop the boats pronto, it would just take pulling out of the European Convention and repealing the Human Rights Act and maybe putting Tony Abbott in charge, but the Tory partyroom prefers being welcomed in elite society more than stopping the flood of boats, so will be punished by its party base in the election later this year.) Trump, of course, doesn’t care about being accepted in ‘polite society’ so he tries to do what he promised. And that’s another thing. Take a look at what Trump promised before 2016 and what he did – the man tried to deliver on every promise. To me it is bizarre that so many conservatives implicitly would prefer another term of Biden to a second term of Trump.
One factor might be the Ukraine war. Trump was the only President in aeons whose administration was not involved in any war during his whole term. He lambasted other NATO countries which refuse to spend on defence, wanting American money and soldiers to defend them. One hypothetical question is whether the Ukraine war would ever have started had Trump been in office. He says it wouldn’t have. I tend to agree. But now he says he’ll end this war and quickly. Nikki Haley is full on for keeping it going and punishing Russia. But surely there needs to be exit plan other than “we in the West, who can’t even manage to spend 2% of GDP (the U.S. excepted) on defence, are going to drive the Russkies back to their 1989 borders”. Call me sceptical. (And by the way, under Biden recruitment to the U.S. military has collapsed – he’s impregnated ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ dogma into the military and the sort of people attracted to that career hate it. They’re just not joining.)
That leaves Trump’s handling of Covid. I’ll be frank. It stunk. He turned over too many decisions to puffed-up bureaucrats like Fauci. Ron DeSantis (with Kristi Noem of South Dakota) is the U.S gold standard on how to stand up for civil liberties, against lockdowns, for keeping schools open, etc. He should have made his whole campaign about lockdowns. He didn’t. Meanwhile on every non-pandemic policy count Trump was better, certainly better at bringing out the working class vote and at retail politicking. If you look at Biden vs Trump on lockdown policies Trump was miles better. He never mandated the vaccine. He never pushed school closures. Go down the list and though on some Trump was bad, Biden was worse on every one. (And yes, if that sounds as though I am still fuming mad about what our political class did to us for two and a half years, throwing darts at the dartboard to decide which businesses were ‘essential’ or what you could do outside, not paying a penny of costs themselves, spending more than in World War II per capita, transferring huge monies from the young to the old and from the poor to the rich via asset inflation and printing money, well I am fuming mad. I want some accountability, though it’s plain most people just want to move on.)
Anyway, my point is that we now know that Trump will be the Republican nominee in next year’s election. I think it’s 50-50 whether ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ Biden can be propped up to run again but the fact is he’s probably the best shot the Dems have. And so I give this hostage to fortune and predict a second Trump term when he wins in November.
James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University. This article first appeared in Spectator Australia.
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Noem was good but even she is imperfect. At the end of March 2020 she asked the SD state legislature for more powers wrt covid. To their credit the lawmakers rejected this by 50-17. 2020 House Bill 1297 | South Dakota Legislature (sdlegislature.gov)
At least she thought to ask the legislature rather than just exercise powers that were not really hers, which is what most political leaders did worldwide.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is very common and it’s part of the wider malaise whereby the Overton Window regarding anything remotely non-woke non-socialist has been shifted. I was talking to an acquaintance yesterday about European politics and Meloni came up. “Oh, she’s far right isn’t she?”. This acquaintance is educated, intelligent and afaik of fairly centrist political views. I challenged him to explain what “far right” could possibly mean and wondered how it could be applied to a democratically elected politician who is governing within the rule of law and has not yet sent brownshirts or blackshirts onto the streets or made her politicial opponents disappear. We have a mountain to climb.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” sums it up precisely. As for the other fraudulent “patriot” Meloni, shoehorned into power by the Globalists annoyed at the popularity of true patriot Matteo Salvini, she began reneging on her anti-immigration stance almost immediately after taking office, now focusing on snuggling up to Sunak in news photos.
I found the proper quote from John Fugelsang on Drumpf:
“For two thousand years Christians warned about the AntiChrist, but when he finally arrived, they welcomed him with open arms.”
Salvini was better on lockdowns
Trump will win the 2024 election as he did in 2020 by a landside. When 5 swing states stopped counting in the middle of the night with him ahead, then thousands of votes poured in for Biden, this was banana Republic stuff, totally blanked by the UK media.
The only issue is the level of corruption in America’s election process.
I reckon 50/50 Trump is elected and I pray he is, for all our sakes.
Biden’s vote fraud was likely 40 million. The criminal money laundering pedo won 600 counties….out of 3000. There are 159 million registered voters in the US. Drumpf the pharma salesman won 75 million probably 80 million when you count the burnt and ditched ballots for Drumpf. Biden winning 81 million for 156 million in total, is impossible given that no more than 70% (if that) vote in an election. Let’s be generous and say 130 million voted in 2020. This means that Pres Idiot won no more than 45 million votes. And the fake news says what? ‘The securest and freest election evah…..’ The US is indeed a failed state. One reason for the Rona fascism was to make sure Drumpf lost.
And I will predict this – 2024 will be the same – I am expected another scam-lock down or some similar emergency. I am definitely expecting the Dominion databases to have votes flipped and a repeat of the Mules as proven by de Souza’s film. And the sheeple and fake news will say what? ‘The securest and freest election evah….’
Right on! It’s so obvious now the election was stolen. And the other 5 eyes countries were in on it as they all declared Biden the winner immediately. I am worried the radical Democrat elites will do something extreme like provoke a civil war (Texas Border Dispute) or provoke a world war or outright assassination or accident like Soros has indicated. Haley is just a Democratic plant funded by a big Democratic funder, it has been reported. The western world is teetering on the brink, it would seem.
“Trump will win the 2024 election as he did in 2020 by a landslide“
If that’s true, what’s to stop the same thing happening again, whereby Trump wins by a landslide (or a narrow margin), but officially Biden wins?
The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
Stalin
I predicted a Trump landslide in the year that Biden “won”.
Let’s see what happens this time!
And you were right.
According to “The Primary Model”, the most accurate predictor of US elections with a staggering 25 out of 27 elections from 1912 to 2016 (93%) called correctly, it to predicted a landslide for Trump.
Strangely though, the prediction in 2020 was, apparently, badly wrong. The model predicted 362 electoral votes for Trump and 176 for Biden but the results showed an almost complete reversal with Biden getting 306 votes and Trump 232.
Either this incredibly accurate historical predictor got it almost completely wrong in 2020 or…………. it actually got it right again and the election was, as Trump said, ‘stolen’!
http://primarymodel.com/2020-1
“That leaves Trump’s handling of Covid. I’ll be frank. It stunk. He turned over too many decisions to puffed-up bureaucrats like Fauci.”
I agree with all you have written but this is his biggest weakness. He is 100% incapable of admitting he was completely, outflanked by the US equivalent of the blob. He was unable to handle Fauci.
But (vaccines apart) even his instincts on science were correct. The world still laughs at his comments regarding disinfecting the airways. But of course it has escaped the notice of all the mainstream press that several “disinfecting” treatments has since come to market and the efficacy of disinfecting the airways has been confirmed to be very high. So this shows his strength and weakness. Great instincts. Often terrible delivery using language that enables the “educated classes” to laugh him off. Yet it is they who, in the final analysis, are the fools.
Agree. Every time I dare to mention Trump’s Covid record on here I get massively downvoted. It’s like people don’t want to have to think about it. Yes, he seems by far the best option amongst the political class, but he behaved like a toddler during the ‘pandemic’, taking instructions as if he was a child, not the president of the US. He still believes the actions he took were correct, and this is no small matter. He will do it again. He will follow again at the very moment we need him to lead. That is a problem that that should terrify everyone.
Drumpf was a pharma salesman. His quackcines murdered hundreds of thousands. He and everyone involved including Fauci need to be in prison.
I can forgive a mistake – god knows I’ve made enough – but Trump doesn’t see it as a mistake. That’s a major problem. There’s a Trump Derangement Syndrome on the pro-Trump side as well, you can see it by the number of angry downvotes you get if you dare to criticise him. And this is from people who are on here because they rejected the vaccine push that Trump played a key role in. Rational thinking goes out of the window on both sides of the Trump argument.
Of course, if you point to his actual record from 2016 to 2020 it is basically impossible for any remotely Right-of-centre (and indeed any independent) voter to deny that it’s the best record of this century.
His record on the economy was hard to evaluate because of the epidemic. Here are some actual figures:
On the other hand:
So a mixed bag I would say.
However, I would have thought left or right wing would have dismissed him outright for trying to overturn the results of the democratic process.
“However, I would have thought left or right wing would have dismissed him outright for trying to overturn the results of the democratic process.”
Or left and right wing would have commended him for defending democracy against those who tried to subvert it.
I am sorry but there were numerous enquiries into the election process in several states including many lead by Republicans and no evidence was found of significant fraud. This big lie was one of the worst things any president has done.
I have no idea whether there was fraud or not and in many ways I don’t much care. Given everything else that the establishment did to try and derail Trump, it’s certainly plausible that there was.
Shock horror – politicians lie! I expect them all to lie. Trump is no saviour but he is vastly preferable to Biden who is figureheading a US that seems to want to destroy itself and the rest of us with it.
Alleging election fraud is worse than bombing the crap out of Vietnam, or getting thousands of young men and women serving in your military killed for no reason, or wrecking the economy, or letting millions of illegal immigrants into your country, or pretending there was a “deadly pandemic”. Ok.
Where there is mass postal voting there is always fraud.
There is always some fraud whatever the method but all the evidence is that the amount is negligible, nor is it biased toward one party..
You haven’t a bloody clue what you are talking about.
“Where there is mass postal voting there is always fraud.”
Having acted as an election agent I can confirm that assertion with absolute certainty.
No question which is why the Labour Party was so keen to widen its scope.
Two Jags was heavily involved in pushing postal votes.
That is not true. Many of Trump’s trials never made it to the evidence stage. A lot of them were dismissed because, supposedly, there was no victim, or because the judge decided that the claim wouldn’t change the outcome of the election. The problem is that the sum total of all the claims would have changed the outcome of the election. But of the trials that were actually carried out, Trump won most of them.
None of this is in the media. All they want you to know is that Trump lost his trials when nothing could be further from the truth.
MTF, would you be happy for American-style computer voting to be introduced in UK elections, instead of traditional paper and pencil voting. I certainly wouldn’t.
No problem.
You’d be happy with Fujitsu voting machines, would you?
An election is only as safe as the people running it. While computer voting would allow centralised fraud, it’s not like paper and pencil voting is bulletproof. Not to mention that you can walk into any polling station, give them a false name and address, and they’ll let you vote. Even when they introduced ID requirements to vote, they weren’t actually checking that you are who you say you are. The person checking the IDs and the person taking your name down were two different people. They were only checking that you have an ID, which is a bit useless.
Agree with you. Drumpf did very little in office. Some work on the Wall. The economy was better than currently. No wars. He was neutered by the deep state and the useless uni-party unRepublican mafia.
“Drumpf did very little in office.”
Well, better that than too much of the wrong thing. I quite like the idea of a government doing “very little” other than business as usual. Initially my perfect government would spend some time UNdoing a lot of what has been done in recent decades. I want them and their influence out of my life, and want them to focus on the basics.
This is the most important point made so far. It’s possible to make lists of campaign promises that Trump definitely fulfilled, and a few he didn’t – and more generally to point out other things he did and didn’t do (most significant of which, with blinding obviousness, was not starting any damn wars); but the best politicians of the Right know that they shouldn’t necessarily spend their time looking for things to do. Keeping the hell out of other people’s lives is what they should do, most of the time. Reminds of MP John Vaughan-Morgan’s response to questions about what he intended to do about Asian Flu:
“What precautionary action is my hon.Friend’s Department taking?”
“None.”
“And what extra steps is my hon.Friend taking to protect the British people from these infections?”
“None, my hon.Friend. None at all.”
When politicians start trying to ‘get things done’, they very, very, VERY often get them done badly. More Biden will mean war with Russia – simple as.
100% and thanks for that anecdote – I had not heard of that MP.
They often get things done badly and often do the wrong things, things that seem these days to lead to less freedom and higher taxes.
I guess “small government” is not something one can realistically expect too many politicians and political parties to be keen on – bit like turkeys not wanting to vote for Christmas. Rand Paul seems like an exception.
Yes, Rand Pau = Very Good Man
Like his father Ron.
The foundation of Paul’s political philosophy is the conviction that “the proper role for government in America is to provide national defense, a court system for civil disputes, a criminal justice system for acts of force and fraud, and little else.”
It is not clear that the economy was better than currently. It depends what you are measuring and how you allow for the epidemic. Over the last 4 years the USA has done much better than most advanced economies on most conventional metrics.
I agree he did not deal with the epidemic of lies and evil during the Covid scam
His two greatest failings. He failed to deal with the social media phenomenon that turned half the planet against him, and he failed to see his own people betraying him and making a fool of him, particularly during covid. Hopefully, this time around, if there is such a thing, he’ll curate his cabinet better. The social media propaganda machine has been given a huge blow thanks to Elon’s acquisition of Twitter, so things are better.
No, the economy was definitely better where it counted. The middle and lower classes were making more money than ever before. I think it was the first time in a long time that income rose faster than inflation. This is because Trump lowered taxation (not by a lot, true, but look what a huge impact that had) and his America First policy brought back quite a bit of industry.
I guess you mean something like real median household income? This rose steadily through the Obama and Trump years. Obviously it stalled in the period 20-23 because of the epidemic and the ensuing inflation (a worldwide phenomenon) but not by much. https://usafacts.org/data/topics/economy/jobs-and-income/jobs-and-wages/real-median-household-income/
Looking at it with a bit more granularity shows a different story. Obama only recovered from the 2008 crash. Median household income rose to just under the pre-crash values and stayed there for a full year. The Trump got the economy to a new high point. And as opposed to Obama and Bush, Trump managed to have a household income that grew faster than inflation, and your data shows that too.
You write as though recovering incomes from the 2008 crash was easy. Many countries (including the UK) failed to do it. The data are for real incomes so the chart allows for inflation (the main reason the Biden figures show a decline is high inflation)
It’s not as hard as increasing the pace of growth. And recreating jobs that were already there isn’t that hard. The UK didn’t recover as well because of the high taxation rates. They’re much lower in the US.
Hilarious. ‘most conventional metrics’ – who gives a toss if you’re right or wrong – have you walked, or attempted to walk, down any American streets recently? Have you noticed any changes in the quality of everyday life since the Democrats began strangling the country? Have you noticed that the Russians have quite a lot of nuclear missiles? And you drivel on about ‘conventional metrics’ – good God.
“However, I would have thought left or right wing would have dismissed him outright for trying to overturn the results of the democratic process.”
How did he try to overturn the results of a democratic process? By asking for investigations into the election and then launching lawsuits? Sounds to me like that is EXACTLY the democratic process.
Long time no see and excellent post
Thanks. I got triggered, I guess.
As Tommy Cooper would have put it: Nail, Head – Head, Nail.
“Polls afterwards indicated that had the laptop been publicised as probably real Trump would have won.”
He did win, by a landslide.
Which means that unless he has already made a deal with the vote counting deep state to leave them alone once he is elected, he won’t ‘win’ regardless of how many votes he got.
Trump’s record on the economy is a far more mixed bag. As a narcissist and debt-loving big spender, he behaved like a kid in the candy store with taxpayers money and will surely do do again.
Personally, I disagree with his slavish devotion to all things Israel, but then, all other candidates are similarly devoted and/or corrupted on this issue.
One of his biggest problems first time around was getting quality people for the 5000 jobs he had to fill (see NYT article at the time by one higher profile candidate walking away after an interview and then asking the others to do the same).
That’s why he ended up with the C-class, extremists, nutters and amateurs only, who, in conjunction with the constantly sabotaging civil service and deep state, ruined his presidency.
There is little to indicate that he can and will fare better on this point next time around.
The one thing that might change for the better, if he is allowed to win, is that he will likely be more focused on achieving results instead of on playing golf.
I don’t know why you have attracted quite so many downvotes as most of what you say seems fairly obviously true
Maybe my take on this is a little on the dark side but I do believe there’s light ahead too. If we are to believe that the deep state is the true power in the US, then I have to say that if Trump wins in November, they will do every they can to ensure he is hobbled. The agenda that is rolling out worldwide is not to be stopped – they are too invested in it now. To do that, they will have to initiate something that may lead to a suspension of the election. What could that be? A new pandemic? An assassination? An escalation of the war(s)? A new 9/11? A major financial crash? Possibly a mix of several of these things to make it even more scary. Remember, these people are not like you or I, they are hell-bent on carrying on with their plans whatever the cost. It’s why 2024 is likely to be an extremely bumpy ride. I am essentially an optimist and I really feel we will prevail but first we will have to experience a lot of upheaval and that will test us all. Above all, we must remain resolute and hold the line.
I too believe that the Democrats are worryingly quiet. Back in 2020 they were raising huge scandals aimed at Trump. Now they’re sort of whimpering in a corner. Looks like they’re banking everything on their own Democratic party candidate Nikki Haley somehow winning the Republican nomination, so they might try do to something to make that happen. And in their own election, it looks like they’ll replace Joe Biden at the last minute, either with Michelle Obama or with Kamala Harris. But all these seem like very weak plays… Is Russia going to go to a full scale war? Will Disease X be a thing? I don’t know, but it’s concerningly quiet.
Kamala Harris? When she’s not on the bottle she’s on the waccy or an equivalent. The woman is either utterly mad or doped up to the eye balls. She is proper bottom block material.
True. Doesn’t mean Democrats will see it that way. And we all know they’re unhinged enough to vote for anyone and anything if it stops Trump from becoming president. Either way, Larry Elder made a pretty good argument on Tim Pool as to why it we should expect to see Kamala run instead of Biden.
I fear an old-fashioned assassination. The Democrats will stop at nothing. They’re unhinged.
MAGA!
The only thing which will stop Trump from winning the Presidential Election is electoral fraud …. ie Democrat postal votes.
It’s not Trump the elites and bien pensants hate, it’s the people (70+ million of them) to whom he has given a voice.
Democracy is on the line! The ordinary people might actually have their say and get their way, and the ruling clique will lose its power – can’t have that.
I doubt it will be Trump v Biden. As soon as Trump get the nomination Dems will drop Biden for a younger candidate, probably Nuscum.
Robert Kennedy Jr. Is running for President, is well funded and is ahead in the polls of Trump or Biden. Trump has so much baggage and division attached to him that many may vote Kennedy in hopes he will be less divisive. Kennedy is also offering radical reform.