The 2024 elections: Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

One major reason for pessimism that Trump can be defeated, one for optimism.

Hi All,

Ok, finished writing the first part (Glass Half-Empty) and thought the piece should stop there. To do justice to the Half-Full part would add alot of words and make the piece too long. Will do that next week. So this piece might be a downer for many of my readers—but rest assured, some evidence for a different outlook is coming next week! Foiled once again by my wordiness.

Like many people looking through the tea leaves for signs of what happen in the upcoming US presidential election, I’m struck by the flood of contradictory evidence that has been emerging. There are different indications that Democratic support is being under-counted in polls and on the other hand there are also signs that Trump has affected a change in voting patterns that is leading to an important growth in his support. I thought instead of writing one analysis trying to say which might be right, I would admit that I dont know—and bring up the strongest piece of evidence that Trump will be defeated in the 2024 presidential election and the strongest piece of evidence that he might win.

I’m doing this partly as a check on my own biases. I desperately want Trump to lose. I believe that he represents a unique threat to the continuation of democracy in the United States. He has already tried to pervert one election (and almost succeeded) and if he were to return to the Oval Office and regain the levers of power, I really tremble to think of what he might do. While I am not the greatest fan of Joe Biden (regular readers will be more than aware of how critical I have been of his administration’s policy towards Ukraine—and these criticisms could be extended towards his foreign policy in general including in the Middle East, Afghanistan, etc), he is infinitely preferable to Trump. He is presidential in demeanor, follows democratic norms and represents no threat to the Republic. I would vote for Joe Biden’s dentures over Trump.

So that being said, now that my bias is out there, let me say what the most important reason is for optimism and pessimism when it comes to beating Donald Trump.

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Pessimism—Trump and a distinct ethnic shift in voters preferences.