Trump 2024!

As baseballer/comedian Yogi Berra put it, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

Yes, it’s tough, but let’s just try to extrapolate from where we are now, and take a guess as to what Trump’s popularity is going to look like in 2024.  We’ll do this by taking into account what effect the following vectors will have over the next four years:

• To start, Trump’s messy end-game here in 2020 will do nothing to endear him to Americans, and as awkward and revolting as it looks at this point, it can only get worse before it’s over.

• The pandemic will be over, no thanks to Trump’s selfish decision to conceal the truth to preserve his shot at re-election in 2020.  Americans will likely blame Trump for at least some of the suffering they experienced as a result of his malfeasance, or, at best, incompetence.

• We will have learned essentially all there is to know about his relationships with Deutsche, the Russian oligarchs, and with Putin himself.  Maybe there’s nothing there, though that’s hard to imagine.

• Whatever he does with pardoning people within his inner circle (including himself) remains to be seen, but it’s clear that he’s already abused this power, and that this too can only get worse.

• Since the power to pardon does not apply to state crimes, we need to brace ourselves to see how Trump responds to an onslaught of criminal indictments, most likely from the State of New York, covering fraud, tax evasion, violations of campaign finance laws and the emoluments clause of the Constitution.  Of course, other crimes like negligent homicide (COVID), crimes against humanity (southern border), as well as obstruction of justice and treason are possibilities as well, but prudence suggests prosecuting the crimes that are easiest to prove and hardest to defend.  Even in the extremely unlikely event that Trump beats them all, he’s going to show himself for precisely what he is: a criminal conman.

• Once Trump is no longer the commander-in-chief, the military brass will be free to say whatever they please about it, and that’s going to be most unflattering.  It’s probable that we’ll almost faint when we realize how close we were to a true planetary disaster.

• Most foreign leaders will be gracious and diplomatic, reserved in their statements about the outgoing president, but some won’t.  It will be amusing to hear the choice words that some of them will have for the sociopathic liar that caused the United States so much embarrassment and the world so much havoc over the past four years.

Again, predictions are tough.  We’ll have to wait and see.