{"id":85612,"date":"2020-06-04T13:43:09","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T19:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=85612"},"modified":"2020-06-14T15:04:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T21:04:40","slug":"85612","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/85612.html","title":{"rendered":"About this coming 3 November"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Putin<\/a>
President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin at a summit meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, on 10 November 2017 (www.kremlin.ru)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the first time, I\u2019m leaning strongly to the view that Mr. Donald J. Trump will likely lose the presidency in November.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Does this please me?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes. \u00a0I\u2019ve always thought that he is morally, temperamentally, and intellectually unfit for the job.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And no. \u00a0I\u2019m not at all happy about the prospect of a Biden presidency. \u00a0Although, in many ways, Republicans in Congress haven\u2019t exactly covered themselves with glory under the Trump administration, I won\u2019t be happy if the Democrats gain control of the Senate. \u00a0Moreover, I was really, really hoping for many more conservative judicial appointments and for at least one more conservative justice on the Supreme Court. \u00a0The remarkable Ruth Bader Ginsburg will likely hold on through the end of Mr. Trump\u2019s term; it\u2019s extremely unlikely that she would have been able to retain her seat on the court through a second<\/em> term.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the end, if the White House changes hands come next January, as I now think likely, it will be because Mr. Trump loses, not because Mr. Biden wins. \u00a0Joe Biden is virtually invisible right now, and that\u2019s probably working in his favor, as his very considerable flaws (personal, political, and health-related) are not being scrutinized. \u00a0He will be elected, if he is elected, as the generic Democrat or, even more accurately, as the non-Trump or the anti-Trump.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fierce denunciations from the retired four-star Marine Corps generals John Allen<\/a> and James Mattis<\/a> (the latter of whom served as Secretary of Defense in Mr. Trump\u2019s cabinet from 2017 until his resignation in 2019) may well, in my judgment, represent the real beginning of the end for the Trump administration, though Mr. Trump\u2019s erratic non-leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic was already making his personal defects, including his insecurity, pettiness, and vanity, painfully and inescapably visible even to many of those who have somehow managed to deny them for three or four years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump is not<\/em> a conservative<\/em>. \u00a0He never has<\/em> been. \u00a0He is a nationalist and a wannabe autocrat, among many other negative things:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump falsely claims he has \u2018total\u2019 authority\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFox Host: Conservative Heads Would\u2019ve Exploded If Obama Claimed Trump\u2019s Total Authority\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFederalism Flip-Flop Shows Trump Has No Ideological Framework:\u00a0There is no Trumpism. There is only Trump.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n