How Trump Wins Big: Two Bad Trends for Democrats.

If Trump wins in 2020, Democrats will spend years fighting over the reasons why.

If it's a big win, there will be two big reasons.

"Socialism. Socialism."

Lots of little things can contribute to a Trump victory.  People can point to the fact that the Democratic candidate--whoever it is--will have been given a label that stuck--Socialist, Man-Hater, Pocahontas, Little Butt Boy, Sleepy-Creepy, Skateboard Boy, Ms. San Francisco. Maybe one demographic group or another will be unhappy that their group didn't get the nomination. Or maybe someone should have spent less time in one state and more in another. 

Maybe it is Trump flinging the "Socialism" charge: Click   Maybe it is how disgusting and flawed Democrats are, in the minds of Trump supporters: Click   Little things.

Trump might win big.  That would happen because big forces are at work.

Immigration. 

This blog got e-mails and comments about people living in poor countries. They are a reminder that the immigration issue remains in place. 

A friend in Mazatlan, Mexico wrote: 

     "Here in Mazatlan we have good workers say they are willing to walk to the USA. We tell them the dangers--the Sonora desert, etc. They still go. They can find jobs and work in the US, make more money than they can here, and send it back to family in Mexico.

     It isn't political corruption here that bothers them. They expect that. They want the US because they just want to work. There is not way to measure unemployment or inflation here, but when gasoline costs $4/gallon and cost for a bus ride one way is 75 cents--while the daily wage is under $7/day, people need to escape."

John Flenniken of Portland wrote this about rural Mexico:

     "My son Greg and I traveled to a remote mountain village in Mexico. Greg had participated in a cultural exchange. His host family were successful coffee growers and considered wealthy in their village. Then came NAFTA. The price for a kilogram of raw coffee beans fell from 5 pesos to 50 centavos. The family was no longer able to hire people in the village to work their corps. The beans were left to rot. The family lost their land. 

     The effect on the village was for the younger, mostly male, members of the village to leave for the US to find work at much higher wages and send the money home. These young men were willing to work for below-minimum wages in hopes of sending a monthly amount in US dollars equal to, in some cases, an annual wage picking coffee beans and tending local farms. This added to, and incentivized, the youth of Mexico to look to the US as a land of economic opportunity. NAFTA’s effect had been to destroy their local opportunity and disrupted their village. As a postscript: the young fathers coming to the US eventually had enough money to pay, by any means, to bring their family to city or town where the father found worked."

Get here legally, then stay

Thad Guyer, in Vietnam, had the same message: 

     "I live in Vietnam. Rich and poor people have one goal in common-- get to the USA. Half of illegal immigrants are visa overstays, i.e. tourists, students and tech professionals who are "haves" not "have nots". They have one common goal-- stay in the USA. Why wouldn't middle and upper income people and poor people want to come to the cultural MTV and Disneyland of the world? PEW says 65 million want to come here asap. Illegal immigration to the USA is a cross-class free-for-all.

     So illegal immigration is the defining issue in every presidential race. Trump will bury Democrats again in 2020 with that issue."

Bottom line: The images voters see will be people clamoring to come to America, and immigrants at that point of entry are easily portrayed as masses of poor, dependent people--public charges, and maybe some are criminals. They will see that Trump is attempting to stop it--brutally--but that Democrats appear confused and helpless because they are more sympathetic to the immigrants than to the people already here. It is a version of NIMBY, the desire to protect what you have and stop newcomers and change.  

Voters showed that they want something done.

The economy, stupid.

Unemployment trend continues down under Trump

Obama's efforts, teaming the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, saved the banking system and therefore the economy from depression--but at the cost of rescuing un-sympathetic people: the bankers who caused the mess. The economy recovered, Trump called the result "carnage" and Obama failed to contradict that narrative. Two months after the inauguration Trump said the economy was great, the best ever, and that he was responsible.  Again, Democrats didn't protest.

Net result: Trump gets credit for the recovery.  Trend number two is that the recovery has not faltered. It nearly did. Last summer and fall, as the Fed moved interest rates back up toward a sustainable equilibrium, the economy sputtered. Trump protested. The Fed blinked, and backed off raising rates.

The economy is now much less likely to fall into recession in 2020. Trump will have a strong economy and he will take full credit for it. Democrats will say that "Trump cannot do the job" but in fact, if unemployment is about 4% and we are not in recession, then consumer confidence will be good or very good and this is a giant headwind for Democrats.

Trump has the foundation of a landslide.

Democrats can console themselves thinking that Trump is on the ropes, about to be exposed as a self interested, corrupt, con man, on the edge of impeachment. 

It is true--but irrelevant. People know this. It isn't what is important to them.

Trump will project an entirely different image to a great many voters: he is a cruel maybe corrupt bully on immigration doing a dirty job that needs to be done, while presiding over a strong economy. Trump's image isn't pretty, and voters will tell pollsters they don't approve of the guy.

But they will still vote for him: the dirty guy doing the job he was elected to do.