I did say it was a bit of an outside punt, but its unlikely that Trump will actually walk away, despite having become only the third US President to be impeached. All of the other factors described in the prediction, however, have played out as suggested. In the impeachment hearings, it has again been Trump loyalists, including people who gave $1 million to his election campaign, that came forward to say that Trump attempted to put pressure on the President of Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden and his son, in order to further his own election chances.
Every day brings more people in Trump's periphery into the spotlight, and also brings further revelations and challenges to Trump and his family. The latest pressure point is some evangelicals turning against him, though, other than we already know about their total hypocrisy, its hard to know how they could ever have supported him to begin with. Sooner or later, all of these challenges from so many angles will overwhelm Trump. His base continues to support him, despite all of the facts, as a question of blind stupidity that is consonant with the bigotry that shapes their behaviour in general, but Trump's base does not form a majority. Indeed, he did not have a majority in 2016, having secured 4 million less votes than Clinton.
The trick of winning bare majorities, in selected states, so as to get a majority in the Electoral College is not something the Democrats are likely to allow to happen in 2020. Moreover, a radical challenger, like Sanders or Warren, able to appeal to industrial workers, in a way that Clinton did not, and able to mobilise the enthusiastic, young, new membership of the Democrats is likely to be much more effective in turning out an angry anti-Trump vote, as they did in 2018 in the Congressional elections. In the period since then, Democrats, often progressive Democrats, have been winning a series of elections in districts where Trump had won in 2016.
Before long, its likely that Republicans will begin to question whether sticking close to Trump, to win their own primaries, is sufficient, if it means simultaneously losing in the General Election, as Democrats turn out to vote en masse, and they are supported by a growing number of independents who are opposed to Trump. Holding back Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate could be a good move, so as to allow more of the facts to emerge, more of Trump's associates to be arraigned or turn on him, and for more damaging revelations, for example, on Trump's tax affairs, to get into the public realm. It means that more pressure will be applied to Republican Senators, who may then begin to turn on Trump to save their own skins.
Michael Bloomberg has been proposing standing as a Democrat, but he would serve a greater purpose by standing as a Republican to challenge Trump.
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