Trump has hit campaign trail early and will fight dirty till end

However, the big news this week will be – barring divine intervention – Donald Trump’s not-guilty verdict on Wednesday. The Donald was never going to be impeached by a Republican Senate in an election year. Even if any Republicans had been mindful to actually read the available damning evidence and vote with their conscience, they would certainly have been deselected as candidates by party loyalists.

Few people on this side of the Atlantic grasp the extent to which the Trump machine has reconstructed the old Republican Party and turned it into a populist vanguard with loyalties only to Trump’s family dynasty and its political and business interests.

Trump seized the White House in 2016 in the teeth of opposition from much of the Republican establishment. In particular, this opposition included the so-called “neo-cons” – hawks who had originally captured the party machine from its old Northern, liberal, industrial wing back in the Reaganite Eighties. The neo-cons (represented in office by the Bush family, with its links to Big Oil) favoured globalisation under US military hegemony. But this policy met increasing voter resistance after the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq and the decline of domestic American industry when production was offshored to China.

Enter Trump.

The Donald represents a loose, fractious coalition of domestic American business interests – not the big high-tech exporters who have offshored production abroad. Trump’s business supporters want protection from Chinese competition. And they are desperate for continuing low interest rates to keep America’s consumers – increasingly poor and low paid by European standards – buying and politically distracted. Plus, there are the hedge fund billionaires – often mad libertarian egomaniacs – who need Trump to de-regulate US financial rules.

Result: in his four White House years, Trump has imposed tariff walls to block Chinese imports and packed the supposedly independent US central bank with his cronies in order to keep interest rates on the floor. He has also slashed business taxes and massively increased spending. And he has reversed decades of environmental and financial regulations.

The American economy is one giant bubble waiting to burst while his reckless foreign policy is even more dangerous than that of the old neo-cons. However, no-one expects a meltdown this year or even next. Meantime, the US stock market has hit record highs. Is this enough to get The Donald re-elected?

Surprisingly, the latest polls are not good news for the president – despite the fact the Democrats have so far been unable to agree a candidate. (Indeed, while the Democrats always knew they couldn’t successfully impeach Trump, they were calculating that a Congressional trial would prove a strategic diversion till they found a candidate.)

The latest US polls put Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg and Amy Klobuchar a little ahead of Trump, while Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg (the first openly gay candidate) are well behind. Trump’s latest job approval rating as president is down to 44%, while 52% disapprove.

Of course, there are still 10 months until the one election that counts, and the polls are frustratingly erratic. The Democratic lead over Trump has narrowed substantially since October – although you might expect that in any contest, as we get nearer to the election date. Above all, with the threat of impeachment out of the way, Trump has hit the campaign trail early and will fight dirty to the bitter end on November 3. So, we should mark this contest as still open.

The intriguing thing about the 2020 presidential race is the continued strong showing of 78-year-old Sanders, the independent, socialist senator for Vermont and a lifelong political radical, even by European standards. Call him the Jeremy Corbyn of American politics. The US tabloids and right-wing, radio shock jocks are busily digging the dirt on Bernie.

As this refers mostly to his opposition to racial segregation and the Vietnam War – that’s the one where Donald Trump was a draft dodger – this vilification has only increased Bernie’s popularity with young Americans and (more lately) ethnic minorities. Sanders himself is Jewish, although that hasn’t stopped the populist right from accusing him of antisemitism. Heck, as elected mayor of Burlington in the 1980s, Red Saunders even introduced social housing. How Bolshevik can you get?

But is Bernie too left to get the Democrat vote out beyond the radical young? This is a key question, for this election will be won on turnout. Remember that Trump is a minority president. He only won last time because Democratic voters failed to turn out for Hillary Clinton.

Also, Trump’s voter base is static rather than expanding – for obvious demographic reasons. His support came from middle-income (not poor) white males, often in rural parts of America; and from evangelicals. But the growth demographic lies in the youthful cities and with ethnic minorities, which vote Democrat.

If Bernie can get that vote out, he beats Trump.

On the other hand, the Democratic Party establishment hates Sanders and will try to thwart him being nominated. That nomination process has a long way to go. Later this month come primaries in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, then “Super Tuesday” on March 3, when more than a dozen states vote. Super Tuesday will see the first real test for billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. He’s putting his millions into key battleground states, such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

We might even see Bloomberg run a “spoiler” independent campaign, if Sanders gets the nomination. Or see a Democrat centrist such as Biden or Klobuchar emerge at the Democratic Convention in Milwaukee in July, by pooling the votes of anti-Sanders delegates.

If Trump wins in November, he will be untouchable and so more dangerous than ever. Post-2022, if the asset bubble bursts, he would likely double down behind higher US tariff walls, triggering a global sanctions war.

Might The Donald then try to revise the US constitution so he can run for a third term? Or, more likely, is he already preparing to run daughter Ivanka or son Donald Jr for the White House in 2024?

A recent poll of Republican voters revealed that 29% wanted Donald Jr for presidential candidate in 2024 versus 16% who wanted Ivanka. In October, at a rally in Texas for President Trump’s re-election, the crowd chanted “2024!” as Donald Jr did the warm-up.

Bernie Sanders is no saint and his election could open up deep fissures in American society. Trump-style populism would certainly dog his administration all the way to the 2024 election. But a left-wing White House might be transformative at a global level, particularly when it comes to tackling climate change, curbing US militarism, regulating Wall Street and controlling Big Data.

Keep an eye on those Iowa caucuses. They spell our future.