10 Questions That Will Determine Who Becomes the Next President of the United States
Typically, Culturcidal doesn’t talk about partisan politics because it’s just not what the page is all about. However, one thing that seems to be missing everywhere in the media today is actual analysis of why either Trump or Biden is likely to win in November. What are the things to watch? How do we know which way things are going? What are the keys to who’s going to win and who’s going to lose?
Seems relevant, right? Especially since although Trump is polling ahead of Biden in most of the latest polls, it’s still a very close race that’s sure to change a lot between now and election day. After all, there’s almost zero chance Biden is actually going to finish in the thirties or low forties:
We also have to remember that things are going to come up that we can’t predict. Maybe there will be a terrorist attack, China will invade Taiwan or Trump will actually shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue.
We can’t predict everything, but here are ten critical things to watch as the year goes on.
1) If Biden continues to look weak, do the Dems switch candidates? If Biden can’t continue or is pressured into retirement, what happens next? Do the Democrats end up with a D-lister like Gavin Newsom, Elizabeth Warren, or Kamala Harris? On the other hand, could they end up with much stronger potential candidates like Gretchen Whitmer, Roy Cooper, or Michelle Obama? Unless it happens very soon, the primary process also wouldn’t be a factor. Would Democrats embrace a change that is made in smoke-filled backrooms instead of the primary process? There are a lot of questions here, but not a lot of answers yet.
2) How much do the trials hurt and distract Trump? Trump has got a lot of trials going on that will have consequences not just for his campaign, but for the rest of his life. Assuming the documents trial happens this year, there is a very real chance he will be convicted of a felony and face jail time. If that happens, it would be highly likely to cost him the election:
“More than 30% of Republicans who responded to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said they would not vote for former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election if a jury convicts him of a felony.”
Of course, there is much more to it than that. Will Trump be forced to sit in on federal trials every day for much of the year instead of campaigning?
Does he get hit with a gag order that potentially curtails his ability to campaign? Will breaking stories from the trials dominate the news cycle? Will the trials become so distracting that Trump can’t properly campaign? In and of itself, these trials have the potential to kill Trump’s campaign dead as a doornail.
3) How soon does the Israel/Palestinian war end? Biden has both a lot of prominent liberal Jews and diehard anti-Semites in his base and they’re at each other’s throats over the war between the Israelis and Palestinians. He desperately needs to shut that fighting down and gave his base time to get distracted by something else. So, how long until this war ends? The sooner that happens, the better it is for Biden and the longer it drags on, the better it is for Trump. Because of this, you can be certain that the Biden administration is applying heavy pressure on the Israelis to wrap the war up in the next 30-60 days. We’ll have to see how that works out.
4) How much does friendly fire and foot-dragging hurt Trump in 2024? Donald Trump is a man who has never had any qualms about making enemies in the Republican Party, which can become a big problem in the general election when you need everyone to pull together.
This is a man who has multiple former staffers and cabinet officials who publicly say he’s unfit for office, former Republican presidents and presidential candidates who openly hate his guts, and more than a few power players in the Republican Party who have made it clear they despise him.
Some of these people may outright try to cut him off at the knees, but many of them will probably do something more akin to slow-walking his campaign. They won’t fundraise for him, campaign for him, or do anything to make his life easier. Trump is someone who never offers much of a choice other than to kiss his feet or be his enemy. That approach has made an awful lot of enemies out of Republicans who would be bending over backward to help any GOP candidate other than him.
5) Does the Fed start cutting rates significantly to juice the economy and the stock market? If the Fed cuts interest rates, especially if there are multiple cuts, it could juice the stock market, get the economy moving faster, and generally make people feel better about the economy. Behind the scenes, you can be sure Biden will be pushing very hard for that outcome.
6) Who loses more of their base? You can choose to believe him and the many other people who pointed this out or not, but according to William Barr, who was Trump’s attorney general, one of the biggest factors in Trump’s 2020 loss was the number of Republican-leaning voters who simply refused to pull the lever for him:
Keep in mind that the 2020 election was pre-Jan 6 and before the unnecessarily nasty primary the GOP just went through. If anything, we should probably expect Trump to lose even more Republican and Republican-leaning-Independent voters this time around. On the other hand, Biden has his own problem with Democrat voters who believe he’s too senile or isn’t pro-Palestinian enough. Which side will have more defections when all is said and done?
7) How badly does Trump lose in fund-raising? In 2020, the Left had about 1/3 more to spend than Republicans on the presidential campaign:
Trump’s legal problems are likely to be a problem for him in two ways on the fund-raising front. First of all, he’s going to spend an enormous amount on lawyers. We could be talking 100 million dollars in legal fees. So, not only is that money not going to be spent on the campaign, but it may also discourage donors from giving to his campaign. Most political donors will want their money spent on winning races, not paying lawyers. That means the fund-raising gap in 2024 is likely to be even larger in Biden’s favor this year than in 2020.
8) Will Trump build on his success in bringing in minority voters in 2020? Trump pulled in 32% of Latino voters and 12% of black voters in 2020. Those aren’t earth-shaking numbers, but they were certainly good for a Republican and moving in the right direction. Could Trump improve on those numbers? He may need to in order to win the election.
9) Do the Dems have more sex crime-related civil trials waiting in the wings after Trump's loss in the E. Jean Carroll sex abuse trial? Very little time has been spent on it in conservative circles, but Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a civil trial. This has the potential to be devastating to Trump because 26 other women have also made sexual misconduct accusations against him.
Trump mostly got a pass on this issue the first time around but after a conviction in a court case? If the Democrats are smart – and they do tend to at least have animal-like cunning in matters of this sort – they will fund more civil lawsuits from these women against him and will package that together in ads all year long featuring pictures of him and Jeffrey Epstein, along with the endless number of crude, sexual comments he’s made.
In other words, the idea would be to try to turn him into another Bill Cosby in the public’s eyes. If, over the course of the year, this peels off 5% of women voters that would have otherwise gone to Trump, he’s almost certainly going to lose. They haven’t done much of this yet, but fair or unfair, it’s a huge, obvious area of potential vulnerability for Trump.
10) How much of a splash do the third-party candidates make? Trump only pulled 46% of the vote in 2016 and 2020, so there is some reason to believe that may be his ceiling. That means to even have a chance to win anything more than a razor-thin victory, he needs third-party candidates to peel off some of Biden’s support.
Luckily for Trump, Jill Stein, Cornel West, and Robert F. Kennedy are all in the race. Furthermore, Kennedy is actually doing very well at the polls right now, although we have to expect his numbers will drop off significantly by election time. Could we see more candidates get in? Could we also see a conservative-leaning protest candidate run against Trump? Absolutely. This could be a decisive factor, maybe not in the nationwide vote totals, but certainly in some swing states.
I'm not die-hard Trump fan. He's got problems, but maybe the biggest one would be if somehow he actually wins. But I think they will kill him before they allow that to happen. If Biden or any democrat wins then the biggest problem for this country will be that. We are on the skids, and it looks bleak. I would vote for any Republican over any Democrat after what we've seen them doing since 2016 and long, long before. That a huge number of people are afflicted with TDS mental illness, and a small of but deadly group is ruling them means goodbye America, hello Hell Pit, gratis Democrats and their shadow leaders.
The best thing that Trump can do for himself right now in the E. Jean Carroll matter is to just STFU. He doesn't have it in him to do so, but that's what he ought to do if he's really concerned for the outcome of the election in November.