2020 projections are useless, but here's another

It's far too early to predict whether president Trump will win re-election in 2020, but nobody is letting that stop them from making bold predictions. I'm not going to do so. Not exactly. I think there's a realistic range between best cast and worst case for the president. I'm going to kick off my election season discussions with that range as I see it, right now. Thre is still time and room to blow both these scenarios out of the water for or against the president. That said, let me start with the worst case for the president.

Worst case scenario: president Trump loses Wisconsin and Indiana due to the farming bankruptcies as a result of an ongoing U.S.-China trade war.  He loses Michigan as a result of the GM strike fallout and the constant media hammering of the president. Pennsylvania is lost because it was close in 2016 and Democrats are fired up to win back the state.

The good news is that while the president loses in this scenario, it's not a long fall, and he has a lot of runway to prevent this from happening.  Which leads to his best case.

Best case scenario: president Trump holds his 2016 states - Ohio is not in question, Florida is a reasonable hold, as is Georgia and Arizona.  Harder holds are, in order of ease of holding, North Carolina, Iowa (yes, there will be some fallout from the impact on agriculture over the trade war with China, but probably not a color-shifting change), Michigan, Wisconsin (which is going to be harder this cycle than it was in 2016)  and finally a razor thin win in Pennsylvania is still feasible.

Then there's gains - the president, especially if the China trade war resolves to his favor, could see pickups in states like Main, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Nevada and possibly even Virginia.

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

At this point, I think the outcome is somewhere in between.  2020 is President Trump's to lose and he seems poised to avoid losing.  I'd guess at this point he'll be re-elected but there's a lot of game time left to play and any projection and this point is more for fun than real prognostication.

More thoughts on China

Harvard's Graham Allison & Kyle Bass recently talked about China and how it compares to and contrasts with the United States.

Meanwhile in Canada

Prime Minister Justin "apologize for everything" Trudeau has been outed with a photo of him in what's being termed brownface yesterday evening by Time magazine (because in Canada, the media are liberal lapdogs).

Time magazine seems to be trying to regain their independent credibility by going after a liberal - in Canada.  Let's hope that falls flat, just like the up for re-election and resurgent in the polls Justin Trudeau.

Here's to hoping Paul Joseph Watson is right about this in the minds of Canadian voters:

Brainwashed America - is it too late?

Prager U's Goodbye America explains how America's sense of it's own history has been lost in far too many circles.

After decades of the warping of history and America's sense of self, is a reawakening to the truth impossible?  I don't think so, or else Hillary Clinton would be president today.  A sense that something was, and still is, wrong clearly exists.  President Trump is just the first salvo in fixing the problem, much more needs to be done. But it's not too late.

Steve Bannon's Warning on China

Steve Bannon discusses China's hegemonic ambitions.

U.S. China trade war explained

Patrick Bet-David offers a primer on the U.S. China trade war:

Friday Musical Interlude - Strange Magic

E.L.O.'s 1975 hit, Strange Magic.

Dave Rubin talks to Tulsi Gabbard

Tulsi Gabbard has been systemically removed from contention for the Democratic primaries to run for president.  I'm not a fan of hers but she provides some interesting insights in this conversation, and she does so in a way that conservatives can mostly appreciate - she's far more civil than her Democratic cohorts.  In addition, she raises important questions about the whole system  - the DNC, big tech, etc.

Good news / bad new from the Fed

A few days ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the Federal Reserve is not expecting a U.S. recession:


The news you don't hear:

• no looming recession
• job market growing faster than available workers
• strong market for consumer 
• moderate growth

Here's the bad news for president Trump and for borrowers, it sure sounds like rate cuts are not going continue. They will probably remain stable for the rest of the year, barring 

Is CNN in the tank for Trump?

I'm still playing catch up from not posting for a couple of weeks.  Here's a great summary of the Democrats' nationally fatal proclamations on climate change from the equally insane CNN 7 hour town hall on climate change.

Obviously the proposals are insane.  They are a form of national suicide by economic hemorrhage.  But CNN uses it's platform for a 7 hour climate change discussion, gets terrible ratings.  You compound that with two years of never letting up on hammering president Trump on everything, being proven wrong time and again and losing viewership month after month you can only surmise 1 of 2 things is true about CNN.

Either CNN is so blindly anti-Trump they don't care if they eventually die in the process of their ongoing hatred, OR, maybe they are secretly in the tank for president Trump.  Perhaps they want to be his foil.  They want him to succeed and they are playing the villain and losing on purpose.

It sounds crazy but is it any less crazy than the first proposition?  I know it gets into conspiracy theory territory but there are a couple reasons they might want to support the president by being deliberately stupid.  Their ratings clearly are not one of them because the other mainstream media anti-Trump entities, particularly MSNBC are outperforming CNN.  Continuing to chase that same market segment is not working.  So why support Trump?  They could feel that anti-Trumpism is all they have left and without it, and therefore without him,  they have nothing left.  So they could feel they are in this symbiotic relationship with their arch enemy and it is keeping them on life support - the alternative is complete ratings death.

The other reason, even more cynical, is that those behind the far left liberal progressivism that CNN spouts are the same as a lot of other rich liberals - they are secretly greedy crony capitalists and they like the tax breaks.  It's not as likely as them being just blindly anti-Trump liberal elite, or them wanting to continue to produce goods in China and American workers and America be damned.  

Is CNN in the tank for Trump?  It's highly unlikely, but it is possible.  Their actions have been so inexpiable for the past few years, that anything is possible.

Sunday verse

Hollywood zealots walk back their full-tilt crazy

Debra Messing wants to out Trump supporters. Pure McCarthyism.

It's so ridiculous, so evil, that even dependable liberal Whoopi Goldberg had to call out the Will and Grace stars.

Erik McCormack the other Will and Grace star, did do some backtracking:

Kudos to Whoopi Goldberg and John O'Hurley for standing up for what is right.