In the nineties, Donald Trump was in desperate financial trouble. He survived by persuading bankers that his problems were really theirs, and by offloading his casino liabilities on to foolish, unsuspecting investors. It wasn’t very edifying, but it worked, and it convinced him that he was invincible. His triumph, against the odds and the polls, over Clinton in 2016 clinched the deal.
His belief in his ultimate victory, as I’ve noted before, is the best guarantee that the election will go forward; if he thought he would lose, he would try and cancel it. But is he destined to pull off another magic act, as he undoubtedly thinks? Is 2020 just the second coming of 2016?
Not necessarily. The key to being a successful con man is to rip people off one time and move on. He can’t do that in 2020. He can blame Obama, and the Chinese, and politically correct liberals, and the socialists, and the illegal immigrants, and the Europeans, and the Iranians, and the Ukrainians, and the deep state, and the MSM, and left-wing judges, and everyone else except himself, Putin, and his trusty base, but the record is what it is, and for the first time, he will have to run on it, not away from it.