In my Switzer Daily article posted on 12 December last year “My Australian predictions for 2024”, My Australian predictions for 2024 - Switzer Daily I concluded by giving details of some of my American punditry as follows:
21 April 2020 “Biden will defeat Trump” - https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/malcolm-mackerras/biden-will-defeat-trump/
10 November 2020 “Nixon and Trump: two failed presidents” - https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/malcolm-mackerras/nixon-trump-two-failed-presidents/
2 December 2020 “My thoughts on the US election results” - https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/malcolm-mackerras/my-thoughts-on-the-us-election-results/
14 January 2021 “Donald Trump: the worst and most failed US President” - https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/malcolm-mackerras/donald-trump-the-worst-most-failed-us-president/
2 August 2021 “Biden’s presidency going well” - https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/malcolm-mackerras/bidens-presidency-going-well/
29 September 2022 “Biden’s presidency still going well” - https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/malcolm-mackerras/bidens-presidency-still-going-well/
11 December 2022 “Second Trump presidency is already dead” - https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/malcolm-mackerras/second-trump-presidency-is-already-dead/
As readers can see from the heading to this article, my American predictions remain as before. The one admission I acknowledge against myself is that I make one concession to my critics. To say “second Trump presidency is already dead” is to jump the gun a bit. Nevertheless, I assert that this time next year everyone will see that my American calls have been correct all along, in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024.
When a president loses a free and fair election and then tries to overturn that election result by a coup, he challenges the democracy of his country. He has refused to allow the peaceful transfer of power. That is the ultimate crime. He cannot be allowed to get away with it. Fortunately, in January 2021 Trump was not allowed to get away with it – but he seeks to have his way by winning the following election. America’s democracy will have a big win when he is clobbered a third time – as he will be.
I am aware that Trump’s supporters would dispute my term “ultimate crime”. They would say he committed a venial sin for which he should be quickly forgiven because he is such a great man. Anyway, I now turn the above into a probability statement. There is a 65% chance Joe Biden will get a second term, a 30% chance Trump will get a second term and a 5% chance that another new president (Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis etc) will be inaugurated on 20 January next year.
In my article “Nixon and Trump: two failed Presidents” I showed a table of presidential greatness as measured by historians. I showed as “high average” Grover Cleveland (Democratic Party) coming in at number 13 out of 44 past presidents. He was the 24th and 26th President, meaning he served two non-consecutive terms, 1885-89 and 1893-97. Readers can best understand his position by comparing the three elections he contested, showing only the votes and percentages between the two top candidates. My reasoning for showing only the top two votes as relevant has been explained in several of my previous Switzer Daily articles.
In 1884 the results were these:
Grover Cleveland (Democratic) 4,915,586 votes 50.3% 219 electors
James Blaine (Republican) 4,852,916 votes 49.7% 182 electors
In 1888 the results were these:
Grover Cleveland (Democratic) 5,539,118 votes 50.4% 168 electors
Benjamin Harrison (Republican) 5,449,825 votes 49.6% 233 electors
In 1892 the results were these:
Grover Cleveland (Democratic) 5,554,617 votes 51.7% 277 electors
Benjamin Harrison (Republican) 5,186,793 votes 48.3% 145 electors
From the above, my readers will notice that Cleveland won the popular vote on all three occasions but lost the middle election in 1888 due to the vagaries of the electoral college. I raise this case because I come across so many Americanists who think Trump will be the 21st Century equivalent of Grover Cleveland. I don’t accept that view, as I now explain by giving two Trump cases that appear to be the equivalent of Cleveland’s first two elections. In 2016 the results were these:
Hillary Clinton (Democratic) 65,853,510 votes 51.1% 232 electors
Donald Trump (Republican) 62,984,824 votes 48.9% 306 electors
In 2020 the results were these:
Joe Biden (Democratic) 81,282,965 votes 52.3% 306 electors
Donald Trump (Republican) 74,223,509 votes 47.7% 232 electors
I know three Americanists who predict the 2024 election will produce a result roughly like that of 2016. Such a result would make Biden appear to be like Harrison, save only for this: if they are right, then the Democratic Party would have won the popular vote at all six elections but seen their man elected three times. The Republican Party, therefore, would have lost the popular vote six times but seen their man elected three times. My prediction is that the popular vote will distribute 54% for Biden and 46% for Trump giving the electoral college to Biden 320 to 218.
My three Americanist friends admit that such a result would be very logical. The case against Trump was weakest in 2016 - but even in that case 51% of the votes were cast against him. The case was stronger in 2020 which saw him kicked out of the White House. The case against Trump, however, is much stronger in 2024 than it was in 2020. My Americanist friends admit that, but think the US is such an irrational country Trump will win again - with fewer popular votes than Biden.
My scenario goes like this. Following the South Carolina primary on Saturday 3 February all of Trump’s opponents drop out, leaving him to be confirmed as the GOP candidate at the Republican National Convention in July at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The trouble for him, however, is that he becomes a convicted felon in August, even as Biden is chosen to be the Democratic candidate (with acclamation) at their convention in Chicago.
The whole atmosphere then changes. This mountebank is increasingly seen as a crook, not as a victim. Voters won’t elect a criminal with radical policies who wants the presidency so that he can pardon himself! And then people start to understand that Biden has been a pretty good president. It is true that there were some legitimate criticisms of him over the years 2021 and 2022 but they did not stop the Democratic Party performing well at the mid-term elections in November 2022.
Come September and October, American voters understand that the US economy is a Goldilocks case, among the best in the developed world, with strong employment and wages rising, inflation receding and interest rates coming down. Trump’s bullies then try to make out that the Federal Reserve is in a deep-state conspiracy to help Biden – and Trump himself shouts that from the rooftops! It was all to no avail. The American public has figured him out – and he is beaten by Biden again, by a bigger margin.
Finally, the historians note how stupid were those Republicans who voted for Trump in the primaries and caucuses. They made the election a referendum on Trump. If only they had chosen Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, the election would have been a referendum on Biden. It could so easily have been that – a choice between an old man and a young woman/young man. But those voters were so blinded by this false Messiah they blew it!