Mr. America First has upended just about all our alliances, and he may surprise people next year, just as he surprised everybody except a few pollsters in 2016 (https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/18/foreign-diplomats-donald-trump-2020-1459069, by Nahal Toosi).
Bill Clinton defeated incumbent Bush One in 1992 partly with the slogan, “It’s the economy, Stupid!”
Bill Clinton campaigned in Colorado in 1992 numerous times, realizing that the Centennial State was not so much a flyover state any more. On the day he was elected, your solitary reporter watched Bill and Hillary in the early morning hours here in Denver on their last stop before they voted in Little Rock. They had been campaigning nonstop for 24 hours.
Because of America Firstism (which, among other things, means alliances are finished, in favor of bilateral trade deals) the US is heading toward a recession.
Donald Trump has been campaigning for re-election since January 21, 2017 — the same day that the Women’s March Against Trump was held. Your solitary reporter marched in that one, in Denver, with men and women, and the streets of the Mile High City were full of protesters.
Accoridng to Politico’s Nahal Toosi in yesterday’s post, foreign diplomats are preparing their capitals for the possibility that Trump will fool the American voters yet again.
Trump seems to have lost his biggest domestic ally, Fox News, because of his ill-founded conspiracy theories (https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/19/politics/donald-trump-fox-news/index.html). No doubt, he thinks that the baddies at Fox are the ones who are sabotaging his efforts to make deals outside of traditional alliances.