I think it's an issue of his personal bias clouding his judgement; something everyone falls prey to at times. The man's world consists almost entirely of international politics and economics, and he clearly holds a personal grudge against Trump for not doing what he wanted him to do in that sphere. He also probably has no idea that the Democrats have openly supported the riots, or that said riots aren't just "peaceful protests", and has apparently bought into their narrative about the Corona Virus, blaming Trump for things that were not his fault.
Zeihan should have stuck to his guns, and stayed out of America politics; because every time he opines about that particular subject, it damages his credibility.
I agree that he is struggling with his own bias, but I don't think he's wholly beholden to it.
He does make some good points, so let's address them.
President Trump’s seemingly deliberate and always callous mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis has contributed to the death of 200,000 Americans.
I think this is unfairly attributed to Trump. Governor Cum-ho's complete disaster in New York City's management is primarily responsible for 32,000 deaths. And look at blue states; California added another 15,000 deaths. Washington 2,000 more deaths and Oregon had another 2,000 deaths. Maryland about 4,000 deaths. That's not to say that Texas hasn't had its own issues, with almost 16,000 deaths...but this is not the sole fault of the President. Pelosi and others also ignored the problem at first and even called Trump a racist for his initial actions to prevent Chinese nationals from coming over to the US.
That's not to say that Trump didn't make mistakes. But the Democrats promoting protesting and rioting during a pandemic was not a good look. Especially when said riots have lasted for months.
In per capita terms that’s double the suffering of Europe or Canada. In absolute terms that’s higher than the number killed in any American military conflict save the Civil War and World War II itself. Forget vaccines. Forget ventilators and masks. Forget the CDC and the WHO. Forget the PR war with the Democrats. All Trump needed to do to mitigate the risk was say something like “wear a mask, maintain some distance, and look in on your loved ones”. Paraguay managed it. Bulgaria managed it. This isn’t hard. Most of America’s political middle finds Trump leadership lacking and his behavior disgusting.
I'm pretty sure that Trump did insist on social distancing. I have to admit I don't see where this anger is coming from. Especially when liberal bastions were the first to have massive spikes in their COVID infections and death rates. Where was the social distancing? Or the masks? Every leader has fucked the pooch on COVID-19. Biden might look clean in comparison because he was busy forgetting what state he was in.
It's obvious no one really knew what to do. It's also disgusting that the DNC gave passes to far leftists to riot and protest because a fucking junkie OD'd while getting arrested and instead of allowing the system to do its job, they encouraged massive property damage and racial tensions, all while spreading the virus by their own actions. And worse, causing local depressions after destroying local businesses.
Trump also faces danger on the Right. Trump has alienated fiscal conservatives, the military and the business community – all once bedrock Republicans.
True, but that was going to happen anyway. And to be hones, those voting blocks alienated the rest of the party first; by selling all our jobs to China, by letting Europe and Co rape our markets during a recession, and use government money to cover up their indiscretions; from sexual harassment to Pedo Island. And no one can convince me they weren't aware of that.
The Democrats have avoided – albeit narrowly – running an absolute whackjob and instead settled on Milquetoast Biden. To achieve reelection, Trump must capture every swing state as well as a couple decent sized blue states. That’s just not possible.
It is very much possible. Because that's exactly what he did in 2016. And from what I've seen, there hasn't been much done to change the math.
Trump surprised last time because there was a large block of voters – the populists – the pollsters missed. That’s not the case this time around. And so Trump will lose and he will lose big.
It wasn't just the voting block they missed; they were literally lied to. And in some cases, had rather skewed polling. Seriously, anyone who believes a candidate is actually ahead 10 points in a battleground state is a fucking moron.
Next Tuesday will be the first presidential debate, moderated by Chris Wallace. It will be the first time Biden will need to hold his own in a long-form open forum without his support crew. His performance will determine the election. Biden does not need to best Trump in the debate. All he needs to do is come across as marginally capable.
Aaaaand the clincher.
The debate runs between 9 and 10:30 pm. We're talking at least a 45 minute debate. If Joe Biden is even twice as coherent in his debate as he is during interviews, his goose is cooked. Especially because the things that you generally shouldn't say to someone with dementia, because it sets them off, is the sort of things you need to ask them in a debate. It's going to be high stress and going to involve a lot of memory recall and in some cases, moderately complicated questions.
The sort of odds here are not good. Biden needs to be having one of his better days, with the right cocktail of drugs, and he should ideally NOT be in a stressful situation and most definitely NOT in an environment he doesn't control. Given Biden's continued lack of appearance in recent days and the past few months when he's gone horribly off-script (which are presumably his good days), it implies that Biden's team cannot consistently drug him up enough to get him running properly.
More importantly, unless Biden skips out on any debates, then he will have to nail this three times.
If I were a Democrat, I'd be shitting myself right now. Just like their nominee, come to think of it.
Overall though, his position isn't too bad. I think the thing I disagree the most with him on is how offended the Evangelicals were when Trump cleared out "protesters" for a photo-op. That always stank as overblown to me and months into yet more protests and riots, I don't think the memory is as fresh. And of course, Trump coming through on the SCOTUS pick could re-energize him. Because they may not like what he says, how he looks, or him in general. But he is damn effective at what he does.
zeihan.com
