This week, President Trump sparred with Gold Star widow Myeshia Johnson. Johnson’s husband, Sergeant La David Johnson, was killed in Niger earlier this month. Trump called the widow to express his condolences. But Myeshia Johnson apparently interpreted the call as a callous, indifferent bid for favor. She took her displeasure to Representative Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat, who promptly went public. Trump responded to Johnson’s anger not with sympathy but with outrage: He said he had never been callous toward her.
The most likely explanation for this confusion is misinterpretation on one or both sides. The chances that Trump meant to insult Johnson are slim to none. But it is neither politically nor morally wise for Trump to start a public shootout with a grieving widow.
So why do so many Republicans support him? Because many on the right believe that Trump simply can’t lose, that he has the political Midas touch. Their evidence: Trump routinely said impolitic, offensive, and vulgar things during the 2016 campaign, and then won the election, defeating Hillary Clinton.
Democrats, meanwhile, seem to believe they don’t have to offer an alternative to Trump’s vision of governing, that they can simply stand by and shout at him. Thus, Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, claims that Trump has filled the White House with white supremacists; and Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, says she wants to “eliminate” Trump. The Democrats’ evidence for their apparent belief that Trump will surely fail in 2020 is that Trump’s approval ratings are abysmal and that he lost the popular vote in 2016. Democrats see 2016 as a complete fluke.
However, both sides are wrong.
Trump supporters are wrong to think that Trump is untouchable. Trump didn’t win in 2016 because he’s some kind of Teflon candidate; he won because he ran against the weakest candidate in American history. Trump actually won fewer votes in Wisconsin than Republican candidate Mitt Romney did in 2012. No one showed up to vote for Clinton, so Trump won that state. Trump won fewer votes in Michigan than Republican candidate George W. Bush did in 2004. No one liked Clinton, so Trump won that state. What happens if the Democrats decide not to run a corrupt, venal, and completely uncharismatic candidate? What happens if they run former Vice President Joe Biden or Senator Bernie Sanders? Between 2000, when George W. Bush lost the popular vote by about 544,000, and 2004, when he won by about 10 million votes. Where will Trump get similar numbers?
Democrats are wrong to think that Trump will be a clear loser. Since 1968, only one elected incumbent president has lost an election without a third-party major candidate in the running (President Jimmy Carter in 1980). Incumbency is a huge advantage, and Democrats seem to be under the mistaken impression that they can still count on Obama’s coalition without President Obama on the ballot. They tried it with Clinton. It didn’t work. To compete in the Rust Belt, Democrats must abandon intersectional identity politics. But that means alienating part of their base.
Ultimately, the calculus is straightforward: Trump can’t afford to be reckless, thinking he’s got a sure victory; Democrats can’t afford to rest on their laurels and hope Trump falls. In any case, cautious pessimism may be in order across the board.
