What’s to hate about the 2020 presidential choices?

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By SUZANNE DOWNING

“Everybody I know here is sick about the RNC coming here,” wrote a reader from Jacksonville, Fla. 

“We don’t want them to contaminate our city. Yes, I consider the Trump base to be racist and deplorable. Trump himself is a very sick man. I can only hope that he and his are soundly defeated. It is beyond my comprehension that you support them,” she concluded. 

Harrumph.

The hatred of President Donald Trump manifests stronger than ever on the Left in 2020, and it will not get better as we lurch toward November. 

He cannot win the Left over, and they have expressed their rage at him effectively since Inauguration Day in 2017, when they first took to the streets to protest with their special brand of collective primal scream. They’ve been raging at him ever since, in one form or another, with a special emphasis on this election year.

There’s a reason Democrats hate Trump more this year than they did in 2016. During that election cycle, they were told repeatedly by pundits and pollsters that he had no chance of winning.

“Donald Trump will never be president,” Americans were told by media authorities, who seemed to just “know.”

They didn’t have to hate him with passion back then because he was a joke, a buffoon to the media.

The Left had Hillary, and Barack Obama backed her. That means she would win the black vote. Michelle Obama backed her, which meant she would win the lady vote. Hillary Clinton vanquished everything in her path until she met the likes of Donald Trump.

In 2020, the Democrats are not taking chances. They saw the economy as unbreakable, and Trump on a path to victory. There was only one thing to do – burn it down. Stage a revolt. They are not going to allow him to win again.

In the rearview mirror, this insurrection from Seattle to D.C. seemed inevitable. The people had been cooped up in their homes for weeks in a form of government-imposed repression. Church was banned. Sports were prohibited. Police handcuffed parents playing with their children in parks, sunbathing on beaches, and even on paddleboarders in the deep blue sea. Meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous were raided and broken up. Millions of men and women were driven out of employment, children were out of school, and people were getting sick.

Hell broke loose, and it was fed by the fury against Trump and all he stands for to the Left. As Must Read Alaska’s reader in Jacksonville noted, Trump supporters are now all racist deplorables. She and other progressives are clearly not over Hillary Clinton’s loss and they are in full battle mode to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

It’s worth taking a snapshot look at this moment in 2016, because the country had a choice then. Voters may not have liked Donald Trump, but Mrs. Clinton was unacceptable to many as well.

In the Quinnipiac University National poll released in June of 2016, Clinton had 42 percent support to Trump’s 40 percent. It was considered too close to call. 

Democrat voters may have fretted, but there was no cause to riot. There was enough to work with to get to a win.

Hate was simmering, even then. In that same poll, 61 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: “The 2016 election has increased the level of hatred and prejudice in the U.S.”

But of that 61 percent, 67 percent blamed the Trump camp and just 16 percent blame the Clinton campaign. 

Women supported Clinton 50 – 33 percent and men supported Trump 47 – 34 percent at this time in the 2016 election season. Black support for Clinton was at 90 percent.

Then came November of 2016: Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million, and yet did not prevail and return to the White House in triumph. In spite of two faithless electors defecting from Trump, and five faithless electors defecting from Clinton, Trump managed to crush the Electoral College – 304-227.

It was a breathtaking election for both sides. 

Clinton supporters – almost to a person — are still raging in anger over that result, and Trump voters now have amnesia that their candidate only is in office only because his campaign team did better electoral math. His popularity is marginal, even after four years of a roaring economy.

Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, summed it up in June of 2016: “It would be difficult to imagine a less flattering from-the-gut reaction to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. This is where we are. Voters find themselves in the middle of a mean-spirited, scorched earth campaign between two candidates they don’t like. And they don’t think either candidate would be a good president.”

With liberals sensing Trump could win again, they were the dry tinder for the match that was lit by Black Lives Matter. By the hundreds of thousands, they have turned our cities into chaos because of their hatred of one man, who represents all they hate about America.

For the choices this year, these voters do not have two lightning rod candidates. Only Trump brings out the rioters and the vitriol. 

Biden is milquetoast, dithering, and as he reaches for words he can’t find, he bumbles toward November with neither the stamina for the job, nor the apparent desire for it. 

You may pity him. You may consider him part of the swamp. But there’s nothing to hate there. 

Trump supporters must recognize that the same people who hated Trump in 2016 are hating him even more today, and they do not hate his alternative. They will tolerate Biden. They will market him as normal.

This poses a peril for Republicans up and down the ticket. Trump has a rapidly shrinking window to make his case to swing voters. He cannot afford to alienate them between now and late October, when most will have made up their minds. As for women, it’s going to be a hard sell for Trump.

Although the Black Lives Matter riots show what a threat to our republic the Democrats are, how socialistic and communist-tolerant they have become, this will come down to personality in the end.  Liberals may not like Biden, but he doesn’t trigger them into a visceral reaction, like the angry woman from Jacksonville expressed this week.

Biden reminds progressives of a time when things were going their way under the leadership of the cool-kid president. They long for those days when Obama was “admired” by European leaders and would not rock the boat of the world order. 

Today, voters are faced with different scenario than 2016, when both candidates were hated – almost equally. 

This year, the hatred only goes one direction. But it goes deep. Very deep.

18 COMMENTS

  1. The American Left is more than ready to give up democracy in return for taking control of both the White House and Congress. Most of the media are in on the fix. The effort to shut down police forces around the country is a component of their plan. This could go badly for all Americans, and despite the stranger aspects of life in Alaska right now we may next year look back upon the summer of 2020 as the final normal summer.

  2. You are completely ignoring any and all responsibility that Trump may have in this. Trump is a divider. He is a provoker. He rarely seeks to unify people. He says a few nice words in big prepared speeches, but then screams and rants in dozens of low-brow tweets. He began his candidacy by turning one people against another. It got him some votes, but it established his pattern of sowing contention to gain votes. He is a bullying demagogue, pure and simple. You say that he cannot win the Left over, but he has never tried! His playbook is only to get out his base by vilifying anyone else. Evidence has not shown that he knows how to win over new votes. To be certain, there was plenty of hatred and animosity in politics before Trump showed up. But he didn’t seek to quell it. He sought to use it. That is why he attracts hatred.

    • Why would anyone want to win over a group such as the Left who exist to overthrow an American president, disenfranchise his voters, destroy the American way of life, destroy America’s history,
      .
      …disrespect America’s flag, destroy the American economy, corrupt America’s education system, kill babies at taxpayers’ expense, give money, aid, comfort, and business to America’s enemies,
      .
      … incite riots, use outright lies and unelected commissars to force public policy, disguise virulent racism as victimhood, co-opt mainstream media as a tool to demoralize Americans into giving up,
      .
      … censor movies, songs, books, destroy America’s health-care system, subvert America’s borders, language, and culture into economic, cultural, and social dependency on post-Constitutional government?
      .
      Surely one’s “hatred” is one’s own responsibility, not someone else’s job to “quell” or is this not so among the Left?
      .
      If, my friend, increasingly vigorous pushback against relentless efforts to wreck our country and demoralize our people attracts hatred, it might be the haters who should take a cautionary note.
      .
      After all, recall what happens among a starving pack of wild dogs when the last scrap disappears? Not a pretty sight. But inevitable.
      .
      One suspects “hatred” among more than a few so-called Leftists is like a China flu mask, a tragicomic shield only from Cult reproval, to be discarded immediately as opportunity arises
      .
      … such as a genuinely welcoming gesture from real Americans.

    • Ak Transplant, if governing in accordance with your campaign promises is dividing the country, then yes Trump is a divider, perhaps you forgot, Trump won. The will of the people used to garner some respect, evidently the Bolschvik wing of the democratic party hasn’t any respect for the American Electorate.

  3. How anyone can vote for Biden is just mind boggling. I don’t always agree with Trump but for most part he has accomplished a lot of what he promised in 2016, all while fighting the Dems and RINO’s non stop 24/7/365. We are Independent voters and he will be getting our support again this November.

    • Trump did something no other politician has done……..kept his promises. The list of accomplishments is pages long. It’s nice to finally have a president who cares about Americans. To all you nay sayers, get your head out of the sand and stop listening to CNN. He made your life better too. Our country is at a cross roads. Freedom or Marxism. The choice is yours. Choose wisely, they maybe coming for you next.

  4. They hate Trump because he had the country going the right way. Military strong, America respected and yes, feared, markets and 401k bursting at the seams, Supreme Court made hating baby killers popular again, we didn’t have to bend over and grab out ankles on the world stage. Killary was mouthing around which is a good thing. Keeps Oprah and Whoopie occupied. Borders were more secured. Liberals all fear Trump for keeping America great.

  5. There is a reason Trump won. A vote for Trump was a vote against Obama and Hillery. Not everyone liked being sold out by Obama. Giving Iran hush money. Obama and his wife hate America. Biden is old school politics which means he pets dogs and steals candy from babies.

  6. Jacksonville proper may be a dim stronghold, but Florida is Trump country. I see Trump sign in yards, and along side roads wherever I travel here. People here are not afraid to voice their 1st amendment rights. I have seen 1 Biden sign in the month since arriving. I saw a Bernie supporter saving a turtle along side the road. Go figure.

  7. Suzanne, I think you make the case for Trump very well. Just a few points to put your mind at ease.
    1. Trump does not need to worry about undecided voters. They are as rare as unicorns at this point.
    2. Trumps base will never desert him.
    3. Trump takes his case to the masses better than any candidate I have ever seen. Winning this election is about two things: Turnout and voter fraud. Trump voters will turn out in record numbers and demonstrate there is still a massive silent majority in the USA. This turnout will be enough to overcome the Democrats voter fraud which will be on a scale never imagined before.
    4. The riots will only serve to drive many Dems, lots of them black Americans; to get on board the Trump train. Chaos and anarchy are not supported by any sane people.
    Lastly, if you think the left lost their minds after the 2016 result, you ain’t seen nothing yet. They will be positively apoplectic after Trump is re-elected……..Pass the popcorn……

  8. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the mainstream media. Trump has had 93% negative reporting since before he was elected and the constant drumbeat of “racist, sexist, homophobe” over and over and over and over and over and over and over have accomplished this. They have planted those words in the minds of the public and now people repeat them without thinking.

    Ask your writer from Florida for one example of Trump being a racist. Just one. Other than possibly a poorly-remembered badly-formed argument from some obscure article that badly stretched a half truth, there will be none. And yet the public feels justified in laying the blame for George Floyd at Trump’s feet “because he’s a racist”.

    The media are no longer marginally neutral watchdogs maintaining civility in national discourse. They are entirely partisan and as a result, deserve to lose their First Amendment protection. When they are exposed to risk of liability for slander and libel, perhaps they’ll straighten up. But I doubt it.

    How do we move forward? We don’t unless thinking people are willing to put down their pitchforks and torches, and LISTEN to each other. I’m not holding my breath. I don’t know any liberal, anywhere, that’s willing to do so.

  9. If the progressives are really concerned about racism and slavery, they should look directly at Obama’s administration, and especially Hillary Clinton, the person all the left and many independents voted for in 2016. Hillary started the war in Libya (as well as Syria and Yemen), which led to instability in the region. Libya is still in the middle of a civil war, and they have slavery. Yes, real slavery in Libya, thanks to Hillary and the Obama administration war mongering. As someone is 100% against wars, I would probably vote for Trump in November if he was doing a better job of ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Otherwise, I’ll be voting for Jo Jorgenson even though I know she has no chance of wining.
    .
    This article is from 2017, from nothing has changed in Libya since then. At least one progressive put the blame squarely where it belongs.

    laprogressive.com/libyan-slavery/

    [Live link removed by moderator. Links not allowed in comments.]

  10. We don’t have to stick to the two party system as much as it’s trying to force us to. Look at Dr Jo Jorgenson, Libertarian.

  11. We need a better term than “pearl clutching” for what you and your fellow cultists are doing. Did you think we weren’t paying attention while you did everything possible to thwart Obama for 8 years? That’s hate.

    Oh and hey, it’s not Trump we hate anymore. It’s you disgusting hypocrite enablers I despise with my whole being. You lie like you breathe and I hope for your personal demise. I don’t even care that hate is ruining my life anymore. Mission accomplished, right? Great job, Trumper.

  12. Blah, blah, blah. Trump will be voted out of office this November. Enjoy him while you’ve got him!

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