Add a rollback of clean air rules to make power generation cleaner to the laundry list of horrors coming out of the Trump administration yesterday.
Protection of discrimination against gay people. An end to contraception and birth control pill coverage in the name of “moral” concerns. A coal company lobbyist running the EPA. Separation from the world community on the environment (Paris accords) and foreign relations (Iran pact).
But, in a way, this was the most depressing news of all, though not particularly surprising to someone who lives in Arkansas and can see evidence of the premise first-hand:
Doug Sosnik, a political chief for Bill Clinton (say what you will, but Bill Clinton did politics well), has written an op-ed in the Washington Post that says Donald Trump is likely on target for re-election in 2020.
More than half of Americans don’t think Donald Trump is fit to serve as president, yet he has a clear path to winning reelection. If Trump isn’t removed from office and doesn’t lead the country into some form of global catastrophe, he could secure a second term simply by maintaining his current level of support with his political base.
Sosnik offers several reasons, but this one is
Trump’s support has largely remained durable with a core group of supporters. These are the voters Trump was referring to when he said that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and he wouldn’t lose votes. There is another group of Trump followers whose support isn’t unequivocal, but they have stayed with him because they still believe he will blow up the system and bring about real change.
In order to maintain and nurture his base, Trump will continue to embrace conflict, which will probably solidify his historically low approval ratings. Trump cannot win a two-person race this way. But he can prevail in a field with strong independent candidates on the ballot.
What to do? First, Democrats need to unify behind a single candidate and start working now in those states where tiny margins (helped, it must be said, by voter suppression laws and Russian social media campaigns) gave Trump his electoral victory.