Trump: 4 years or 8 years?

[Person Man]

I think he will either have a poor midterm and then win reelection, or have a good midterm and then lose reelection. My gut says the latter.

Basically agree with this.  If Dems do well enough to flip the House in 2018, he will really let his moderate side show and probably coast to reelection.  If Republicans continue to control everything for 4 years, some foreign policy crisis, civil unrest, or recession will catch up with them.

What kind of Civil Unrest? When did that ever sink a GOP ship? I know Civil Unrest cost Johnson the D  nomination in 1968.

[Person Man]

4 years if Trump continues to be Trump. Less if he gets impeached. 8 years if the DNC goes full retard in 2020.

Basically he fails, but still wins because there is no longer an effective opposition. He runs his course after Democrats become irrelevant and his only way to keep the Republicans relevant is to try to blame the new guys for what they have done.

[Person Man]

I love all these people saying that he'll be a "good" or "successful" President

What's wrong with saying that? There is no guarantee that he'll be a failure as president...

No guarantees for the peanut farmer of Georgia either.

This might be the 2nd longest time we have gone with someone not being picked off since the Civil War if we count Johnson being Primaried in 1968.

1888,1892,1912,1928,1968,1976,1980,1988

Wouldn't be surprised if Pence had to finish one of Trump's term and then Pence lost.

[Person Man]

If Barack Obama had the perception of a left-wing extremist to the Tea Party types, Donald Trump will have the reality of right-wing extremism to people on the Center-Left to Far Left. For that Donald Trump will lose about as much of a share of the popular vote between 2016 and 2020 as Obama did between 2008 and 2012.

Obama 2008 52.86
Obama 2012 51.01

down 1.85

Trump 2016 45.98

down 1.85

Trump 2020 44.13

That will be enough to flip Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida.

I suspect that it will be far worse for Trump. 

Or he gets a 3 point bounce and the third parties stay home and its 48.1/48.8 and he wins in a 1 point pv victory with the barest majority of the PV and wins everything right of CO.

[Person Man]

The conventional wisdom says it's very difficult to unseat the incumbent. We've had two-termers since 19923, or even 1980, if you discount GHWB single term as an exception.

Then again, the conventional wisdom died last election.

I guess what I'm trying to say: nobody has a f**king clue.

I have a f**king clue because my conventional wisdom was correct last election, and I say Trump will be a great President and he will serve two full terms, with 2024 potentially being tossup/lean GOP.

I'm absolutely sick of people saying 2016 was shocking. Conventional wisdom said that Trump and the GOP would win, and they won.

You have to be politically illiterate to be surprised about 2016.

That's not what the polling averages said. Trump had a 21 percent chance of winning. He won because undecideds broke 2:1 which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't for the challenger.

They broke against Romney in 2012. Obama was still ahead and that's why Obama carried Florida. In 2007, they broke even because the election was over by the beginning of October. In 2004, they broke against Kerry and allowed Bush to win NM and IA. He was ahead just enough to put Florida out contention and barely win Ohio. In 2000, they broke for Gore because of Bush's DUI.

Trump has about the same chances of suceeding as he did winning and the same for being an average president whose party steadily becomes the minority even if he gets reelected.

[Person Man]

12 - until the very end.

Oh. I get it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dm-hxr5rBiU

Replace Melania with Tomi Lehner, though.

[Person Man]

ITT: Democrats saying 4 years or less, Republicans saying 8 years.

Shocker.

You think it'd be different the other way around?

Besides cynics such as myself, the bulk of D's here would've insisted Clinton re-elected, while the R's would've insisted otherwise.

My position was and is the winner would be a one termer or not finish.

[Person Man]

i think Pence becomes president before the end of the first term

Yup. I also think Pence has good odds of winning in 2020

He probably loses if he runs for a 2nd term.

[Person Man]

Also, Trump could be impeached. He has already shown a lack of regard to the law and the Constitution. He is scandal-prone, and already historically unpopular. There are his conflicts of interest and other scandals. Allan Lichtman, the professor who predicted Trump's win based on his scientific model, has also predicted his impeachment.

Why does the fact that Lichtman's model has finally been discredited give him credence?

He predicted Trump's win, and so did other scientific, fundamentals-based models.

He is model predicted Trump would win the popular vote. That did not happen, so his model was discredited. (also calling the 13 keys "scientific" would be really, really, really, really, really, really, really stupid, even if they held up this year)

Didn't the model flip when he thought Hillary lost the incumency advantage?