Yapping About the 2024 US Presidential Elections

 

5 Reasons Donald Trump Had a Better Chance in 2020 Than He Has in 2024

The US elections is on Tuesday, November 6th. And on the red MAGA hat corner we have the twice impeached, one-term controversial New York businessman and former President Donald J. Trump running for a record third time. On the blue corner, we have the current and first woman Vice President of the United States, the former senator from California and former San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris. 

The question here is why would Donald Trump think he can win the race to the White House today and yet he failed to do so when he was in charge at the White House? The following are reasons why it will be harder for Mr. Trump in 2024 than it was in 2020 to become commander-in-chief again.

1-    The Advantage of the Incumbent

It can only take a huge dip in public confidence to deny any US President (or any world leader, really) a second term. Considering that Mr. Trump became the first US President to serve one term only since George W. Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992. And while Trump’s approval ratings never went past 40% throughout his presidency, it takes much more than approval rating polls to deny any incumbent a second term.

Even though he had lost the House and Senate in the 2018 mid-terms and the 2020 general elections, it was again not new for any president. But as a president, the resources at his disposal just by being in charge of the White House was enough to win him a second term. But only if he used them wisely.

Donald Trump’s biggest undoing while in charge of the federal government was his messaging. He demonstrated over and over again that he was more loyal to his reputation and his base of die-hard supporters than to all Americans. The Democratic party exploited that weakness to the fullest resulting in a controversy-filled tenure and an embarrassing defeat on November 7th 2020.

With COVID-19 halting the world economies through the unpopular but necessary lockdowns, Mr. Trump’s advisors failed to keep him focused on the priorities for the US citizens and voters in an election year, but instead allowed him to obsess over conspiracy theories and poor communication strategies.

Had Mr. Trump focused all his attention to convincing his base, the American citizens, voters and critics alike, that he was doing everything possible to contain the corona virus, he would have won himself the much coveted second term. But his incoherent remarks and overexposure to the media had him looking overwhelmed and confused, working less, campaigning more, and making a mockery of himself in front of the whole world that was glued to their TV sets due to the lockdowns while waiting for solutions from their governments.

Showing some leadership skills would have certainly propelled his favorability, but instead, he was losing votes in front of the whole world each time he opened his mouth (and in the case of his Twitter account, each time he tweeted). 

2-  The Online Warriors

Throughout the 2020 election year, Mr. Trump’s supporters had massive help from social media bots created due to foreign interference to sing his praise, downplay his opponent Joe Biden, and shout his “Make America Great Again” slogan. This injected a lot of confidence to his supporters on Mr. Trump’s re-election chances on all social media platforms. “Trump 2020” messages were spreading all over the comment sections of every post mentioning one keyword related to politics.

It was all to remind any registered voter what was at stake and to beg the unregistered and undecided to vote back the candidate they knew and that deserved another term for the sole reason of being an incumbent. The bots raided all major social media pages of the then popular apps like Twitter, Facebook, Snap Chat, Instagram, and others that had experienced a spike of users due to the lockdown brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was free campaigning for Donald Trump who was more than ready to continue with the terrible job that he was doing to unite the country against the pandemic at the time. Today, it is easy to note the huge difference as most of the bots have been silenced and foreign interference is being closely monitored by the current administration’s Department of Justice than it was in 2020.

3-   The Crowd Sizes

More than the powers that came with the presidency, Mr. Trump’s second favorite activity was campaigning. He never stopped campaigning since declaring his candidature for president of the United States in New York in 2015. And even after winning the 2016 elections against his Democratic party challenger Hillary Clinton, he never stopped holding political campaign rallies, even famously declaring the launch of his re-election campaign one week after his inauguration in January 2017!

 And his base, most of whom live in the Mid-west states of the country, never had enough of him. And from 2017 until November 2020, he held rallies almost every other weekend that drew thousands of supporters, notwithstanding the statewide bans on public gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020. Mr. Trump kept his supporters energized, ready, and willing to give him a second term and it was easy to see why he was fully convinced that he was on the path to victory. 

 While the Democratic party obeyed the lockdown rules announced by their respective state governors, Mr. Trump’s supporters stood up against any so-called stifling of their freedoms by the state governments through the mask mandates and avoiding crowds. If elections had been decided by crowd sizes, Mr. Trump would have beaten Joe Biden hands down in November 2020.

4-    His Opponent, Joe Biden

In Joe Biden, Mr. Trump found the ideal opponent to square off with and prove his merit for a second term for a couple of reasons:

§  One, Joe Biden could not come out of his house and campaign in the tradition open style due to the rapidly spreading corona virus and mandated lockdowns. This gave a huge advantage to Mr. Trump to brand Biden as “hiding” in his basement instead of coming out to sell his agenda to his supporters much like Mr. Trump had been doing, oblivious of the dangers it posed to his supporters.

§  Two, Joe Biden was older than Mr. Trump by a couple of years and this gave the president more confidence that American voters would not be voting for a candidate who would be in his 80s by the time his first term was ending. That when it came to energy and mental acuity, Mr. Trump was allegedly a better candidate.

§  Third was Biden’s long political history which started in 1972. Seeing that 2020 was his third run for president, Mr. Trump was confident that he would be able to exploit all of Joe Biden’s past weaknesses and blunders to his advantage. He would not have lacked content from Mr. Biden’s 48 years in politics, but instead, President Trump and his advisors decided to only explore a corruption allegation involving Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

This turned out to burn Mr. Trump’s fingers in the form of a quid pro quo accusation that earned him his first impeachment in the House of Representatives in 2019. And in spite of the impeachment, Mr. Trump, his advisors, and supporters believed that Joe Biden’s corruption allegations would deny him a chance to defeat Mr. Trump in the November 2020 elections.   

5-    Campaign Pledges

In 2020, Mr. Trump was in a better position to convince his supporters and critics alike how he had built the wall along the border with Mexico and improved the economy as pledged during his 2016 campaign than he is to convince them in 2024. Voters tend to forget very fast and most proof of his achievements have long been washed out to sea with the currents of time by now.

He can only campaign on the platform of what his opponent Kamala Harris, and by extension Joe Biden, have failed at achieving during their 2021 to 2024 term. It is more difficult for Mr. Trump to convince the voters today of his record and solutions for today’s challenges. His major advantage when it comes to pledges is that most voters have already forgotten the reasons why he was denied a second term in 2020 and he can now afford to take voters back to the spirit of 2016 that he used to defeat Hillary Clinton.

The downside of going back to 2016 for Mr. Trump is that today his critics and opponents in the Democratic party have his record, his tactics, and have a bigger file on him than they did back then.

Conclusion

To win in the November 6th election, Mr. Trump will have to rely on his most committed supporters in the Republican party. Those who have benefited from his energy over the last nine years of campaigning. Those who have stood by him and everything he stands for despite his controversial presidency where he was impeached twice due to the quid pro quo conversation with the Ukrainian President and due to the deadly January 6, 2021 protests at Capitol Hill by his supporters, where six Americans died. And his less than satisfactory handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. And mostly importantly, to win the November 6 elections, Mr. Trump will have to rely on those who have forgotten his first term at the White House.