Leftists Have Totally Lost Their Minds, But It Seems Like Trump Has Lost His Political Super Power

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It is only mid-June, and we are living in a world which can radically change in an instant, but there is a good chance that in the next couple of weeks that the presidential race will be effectively decided in favor of Joe Biden. As someone who was wrong about Trump losing the electoral college vote in 2016, I say this with both great hesitation, but also strong confidence in the evidence that this scenario is more than sound.

The foundation of the argument that Trump is already close to losing this race is multi-tiered. Here are the basics:

• Because Trump is such a polarizing figure, there are very few people who, at this point, have not yet made up their mind about whether they want another four years of this exhausting excursion through never-ending political chaos.
• Until Biden very recently started to pull away (and Trump’s approval ratings took a big hit), the polling gap between Biden and Trump, two extremely well-known figures, has been incredibly static this year despite numerous gigantic news events which, in previous presidential elections, would have dramatically impacted public opinion.
• It does not appear as if a major third-party candidate is going to be part of the calculation, thus greatly simplifying the task of solving the equation for what will happen less than five months from now.

However, the most significant development that should be causing sleepless nights within the Trump campaign is that, unless there is a significant bounce-back for him in the next week or two, it appears that he has lost his most potent political superpower.

The key to understanding Trump’s political success is that his ability to “fly” far higher than expected has always been fueled by excessive political correctness on the part of his opponents. Because a majority of Americans (apparently at least until recently) believe that political correctness has gone way too far, Trump has been able to fight by an entirely different set of rules. This has been to his great advantage, especially when liberals have historically shown no restraint in responding to him in the most politically-correct fashion possible.

When it comes to this election, it has been assumed that the most likely way that Democrats could lose to Trump is by nominating a candidate (Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren) who allowed the president to make the campaign about them, instead of a referendum on him. This is why at the start of the Democratic primary process I was one of those who strongly urged Democrats to nominate Biden, and warned liberals of going too far in their desire for radical change (I would even routinely respond to tweets which favored Democrats letting their inner crazy out by saying “Please enjoy Trump’s second term,” something I have suddenly stopped doing).

But ever since Biden secured the nomination, with a news cycle understandably totally dominated by the pandemic and racial tensions over the conduct of police, leftists have unleashed a Pandora’s Box of Political Correctness the likes we have never seen before. Psychologically incapable of not over-playing their political hand, they have escaped the gravitational pull of a rational Earth with a burst of virtue-signaling fascism seemingly intended to radically rework the entire country, overnight, in their super-woke vision.

On paper, the left completely losing their minds on multiple fronts (demanding everyone wear masks, trying to defund/disband/neuter police, excessively shutting down the economy in blue states, trampling on civil liberties, embracing massive protests/riots while preventing graduations and funerals, shelving classic movies and cancelling successful TV shows for no apparent reason, taking down statues of previously revered Democrats, creating their own anarchist country in downtown Seattle, etc.) should have been manna from heaven for the Trump campaign. The easiest and maybe only way for Trump to win is for enough white voters in key states to be frightened enough of what the left will do to what is remaining of America, should they get unrestricted power in Washington, that they hold their nose and vote for Trump out of sheer desperation.

While the last few weeks of leftist insanity should have done more to cause that exact result than anything the Trump campaign could have possibly contrived while on hallucinogenic drugs, the polling has indicated that it has, at least so far, actually had the exact opposite effect on the contest. Instead of pushing voters away from Biden, it is currently clear that recent events have, so far, pulled them away from Trump (why this is the case is potentially the subject for a future column, the incredibly one-sided and overtly partisan, almost propaganda-like, nature of the vast majority of the news coverage of these events has clearly played an important role).

If the election were held today, there is very little doubt that Biden would win by at least a decent margin. Now, it is possible that there is just so much going on that there has not yet been time for all the dust to settle and for the true impact of what is happening to America right now to fully sink in, but if there is not a change in this trend in the next couple of weeks (a scenario which is still very plausible) it will be clear that we have reached the point where Trump is just so toxic, and the electorate is just so exhausted, that it no longer matters how crazy his opponents are acting.

To be clear, there is still a path for Trump to win (making Biden look weak and too old, attacking his VP nominee, who is likely to be a black woman, making bet that the virus is under control and having it pay off when liberals are seen as preventing a return to “normal” life, have the economy miraculously show signs of real recovery, etc.) but it is a route which is both ugly and narrowing. My primary point here is that the polling of the next two weeks will tell us if Trump is now essentially politically powerless, or if he is still a very formidable foe heading into the heart of the campaign.

While rather odd, if this really is the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency, it actually makes some sense for it to come when his opponents are giving him everything he could possibly want politically. For if he is completely unable to stem the tide of leftist insanity while he is a first-term president, why would anyone rationally believe he could do so as a lame duck in his second-term?

Ironically, the simplest manner to curtail the leftist craziness may be to get rid of Trump and let them have the White House. That way, they might at least go back to a modicum of sensible behavior, if only out of fear of getting crushed in the next election.

John Ziegler is a senior columnist for Mediaite. He hosts a weekly podcast focusing on news media issues and is documentary filmmaker. You can follow him on Twitter at @ZigManFreud  or email him at johnz@mediaite.com

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.