President Johnson
Atlas Star
Posts: 29,183
Political Matrix E: -3.23, S: -4.70
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« on: July 20, 2020, 03:26:21 AM » |
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If Donald Trump loses the election, which is far more likely than not at this point, will his loss mainly be attributed to the pandemic? Will future political analysts and history books write that "he was on track to win reelection" if not for the pandemic? In history, there are some parallels, as Carter's loss is often attributed to the Tehran hostage crisis and Poppy Bush's to his broken promise over taxes.
I think in each cases people tend to overlook said presidents had numerous problems and most likely would have lost one way or the other. Especially in Trump's case, people need to be reminded that he was underdog even before the first infection happened. Joe Biden was constantly beating him in national and state polls, and Trump never had something close to a positive net approval. He would have been the weakest incumbent since at least 1992, if not 1980 even without the pandemic. So if anything, the pandemic likely helps Biden to win by a bigger margin and put Democrats on a better spot for senate control, but all of Trump's other problems would still have existed, including his disastrous response to race protests in the aftermath of George Floyd. Not to mention the fact Joe Biden is a stronger candidate than Hillary Clinton because he comes off as authentic and empathetic, something Hillary (sadly) failed on. And because he has less baggage and wasn't attacked for 25 years like she has been.
Thoughts?
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